Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory

America’s slave past is being analyzed as never before, yet it remains one of the most contentious issues in U.S. memory. In recent years, the culture wars over the way that slavery is remembered and taught have reached a new crescendo. From the argument about the display of the Confederate flag over the state house in Columbia, South Carolina, to the dispute over Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and the ongoing debates about reparations, the questions grow ever more urgent and more difficult.

Edited by noted historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, this collection explores current controversies and offers a bracing analysis of how people remember their past and how the lessons they draw influence American politics and culture today. Bringing together some of the nation’s most respected historians, including Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash, this is a major contribution to the unsettling but crucial debate about the significance of slavery and its meaning for racial reconciliation.

Contributors:
Ira Berlin, University of Maryland
David W. Blight, Yale University
James Oliver Horton, George Washington University
Lois E. Horton, George Mason University
Bruce Levine, University of Illinois
Edward T. Linenthal, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh
Joanne Melish, University of Kentucky
Gary B. Nash, University of California, Los Angeles
Dwight T. Pitcaithley, New Mexico State University
Marie Tyler-McGraw, Washington, D.C.
John Michael Vlach, George Washington University