Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy

Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (1997)
By Kenneth E. Foote

Synopsis: This book investigates the ways Americans deal with violent/tragic events, and the way they choose to remember or forget them. The book quotes Lowenthal in saying "memory not only conserves the past but adjusts recall to current needs" (5). Asks: How do Americans view and interpret the past? In order to get to this, the author examines site of such turmoils as war, mass murders, political assassinations, violent labor and race riots, transportation accidents, fires, floods, and explosions. The book argues that there are four ways tragedies are dealt with: 1) sanctification ( events hold lasting positive meaning that people want to remember - i.e. heroism or great sacrifice - often marked by a memorial or monument, a "sacred place"); (2) designation (sites marked bu not sanctified, may lack "heroic" qualities; a kind of limbo/transitional position; Lorraine Motel - MLK site, later sanctified); 3) rectification ("the process through which a tragedy site is put right and used again;" is what happens to most sites of violence - i.e. murders, plane crashes); 4) obliteration (actively effacing all evidence to cover up or remove from view due to high sense of shame). Basically demonstrates that there is a continuous struggle over meaning and over ways of remembering; some mark ways for communities to come together and heal, some are ways of remembering change and changing needs of the time. What we choose not to remember or mark is just as important as what we do.

Interacts With:

Lowenthal,
Any works that deal with the contested nature of landscape, and/or that show present concerns can influence the way the past is dealt with.