Books in the Cultural Heritage Studies series

Investigates the 1923 massacre that devastated the predominantly African American community of Rosewood, Florida. The town was burned to the ground by neighbouring whites, and its citizens fled for their lives. None of the perpetrators were convicted. Very little documentation of the event and the ensuing court hearings survives today.

In this compelling study, Maria Theresia Starzmann and John Roby bring together an international cast of experts who move beyond the traditional framework of the "constructed past" to look at not only how the past is remembered but also who remembers it. They convincingly argue that memory is a complex process, shaped by remembering and forgetting, inscription and erasure, presence and absence.

This book explores the sociopolitical contexts of heritage landscapes and the many issues that emerge when different interest groups attempt to gain control over them. Based on career-spanning case studies undertaken by the author, this book looks at sites with deep indigenous histories. Melissa Baird pays special attention to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and the Burrup Peninsula along the Pilbara Coast in Australia, the Altai Mountains of northwestern Mongolia, and Prince William Sound in Alaska. For many communities, landscapes such as these have long been associated with cultural identity and memories of important and difficult events, as well as with political struggles related to nation-state boundaries, sovereignty, and knowledge claims.Drawing on the emerging field of critical heritage theory and the concept of "e;resource frontiers,"e; Baird shows how these landscapes are sites of power and control and are increasingly used to promote development and extractive agendas. As a result, heritage landscapes face social and ecological crises such as environmental degradation, ecological disasters, and structural violence. She describes how heritage experts, industries, government representatives, and descendant groups negotiate the contours and boundaries of these contested sites and recommends ways such conversations can better incorporate a critical engagement with indigenous knowledge and agency.A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel

';Maher explores the development of the Frontier Complex as he deconstructs the frontier myth in the context of manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, and white male privilege. A very significant contribution to our understanding of how and why heritage sites reinforce privilege.' Frederick H. Smith, author of The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking ';Peels back the layer of dime westerns and True Grit films to show how their mythologies are made material. You'll never experience a ';heritage site' the same way again.'Christine Bold, author of The Frontier Club: Popular Westerns and Cultural Power, 18801924 The history of the Wild West has long been fictionalized in novels, films, and television shows. Catering to these popular representations, towns across America have created tourist sites connecting such tales with historical monuments. Yet these attractions stray from known histories in favor of the embellished past visitors expect to see and serve to craft a cultural memory that reinforces contemporary ideologies. In Mythic Frontiers, Daniel Maher illustrates how aggrandized versions of the past, especially those of the ';American frontier,' have been used to turn a profit. These imagined historical sites have effectively silenced the violent, oppressive, colonizing forces of manifest destiny and elevated principal architects of it to mythic heights. Examining the frontier complex in Fort Smith, Arkansaswhere visitors are greeted at a restored brothel and the reconstructed courtroom and gallows of ';Hanging Judge' Isaac Parker feature prominentlyMaher warns that creating a popular tourist narrative and disconnecting cultural heritage tourism from history minimizes the devastating consequences of imperialism, racism, and sexism and relegitimizes the privilege bestowed upon white men.