From the award-winning, bestselling author of Skyscrapers, Churches, and Bridges comes a stunning visual history that serves as a tribute to classic American landmarks.

Stop, look, and discover—the streets and parks of Manhattan are filled with beautiful historic monuments that will entertain, stimulate, and inspire you. Among the 54 monuments in this volume are major figures in American history: Washington, Lincoln, Lafayette, Horace Greeley, and Gertrude Stein; more obscure figures: Daniel Butterfield, J. Marion Sims, and King Jagiello; as well as the icons of New York: Atlas, Prometheus, and the Firemen's Memorial. The monuments represent the work of some of America's best sculptors: Augustus Saint Gaudens’ Farragut and Sherman, Daniel Chester French’s Four Continents, and Anna Hyatt Huntington’s José Martí and Joan of Arc. Each monument, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, is located on a map of Manhattan and includes easy-to-follow directions. All the sculptures are considered both as historical mementos and as art. We learn of furious General Sherman court-martialing a civilian journalist, and also of exasperated Saint Gaudens’ proposing a hook-and-spring device for improving his assistants' artistic acuity as they help model Sherman. We discover how Lincoln dealt with a vociferous Confederate politician from Ohio, and why the Lincoln in Union Square doesn't rank as a top-notch Lincoln portrait. Sidebars reveal other aspects of the figure or event commemorated, using personal quotes, poems, excerpts from nineteenth-century periodicals (New York Times, Harper's Weekly), and writers ranging from Aeschylus, Washington Irving, and Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to Mark Twain and Henryk Sienkiewicz. As a historical account, Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide is a fascinating look at figures and events that changed New York, the United States and the world. As an aesthetic handbook it provides a compact method for studying sculpture, inspired by Ayn Rand’s writings on art. For residents and tourists, and historians and students, who want to spend more time viewing and appreciating sculpture and New York history, this is the start of a unique voyage of discovery.

Twentieth Anniversary Edition with a new preface and afterword From the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans in the spring of 2017 to the violent aftermath of the white nationalist march on the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville later that summer, debates and conflicts over the memorialization of Confederate “heroes” have stormed to the forefront of popular American political and cultural discourse. In Written in Stone Sanford Levinson considers the tangled responses to controversial monuments and commemorations while examining how those with political power configure public spaces in ways that shape public memory and politics. Paying particular attention to the American South, though drawing examples as well from elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world, Levinson shows how the social and legal arguments regarding the display, construction, modification, and destruction of public monuments mark the seemingly endless confrontation over the symbolism attached to public space. This twentieth anniversary edition of Written in Stone includes a new preface and an extensive afterword that takes account of recent events in cities, schools and universities, and public spaces throughout the United States and elsewhere. Twenty years on, Levinson's work is more timely and relevant than ever.

From the north woods of Maine to the cactus-filled deserts of Arizona, America's national monuments include vast lands rivaling the national parks in beauty, diversity, and historical heritage. These critically important landscapes, mostly under the Bureau of Land Management supervision, are often under the radar with limited visitor information available yet offer considerable opportunities for solitude and adventure compared to bustling national parks. The Antiquities Act of 1906 gave Presidents the authority to proclaim national monuments as an expedited way to protect areas of natural or cultural significance. Since then, 16 Presidents have used the Antiquities Act to preserve some of America's most treasured public lands and waters. In 2017, an unprecedented Executive Order was issued questioning these designations by calling for the review of 27 national monuments across 11 states and two oceans, opening the threat of development to vulnerable and irreplaceable natural resources. Our National Monuments introduces these spectacular and unique landscapes, in the first book of its kind. Accompanying the collection of scenic photographs is an invaluable guide including maps of each national monument with carefully selected attractions identified and described based on the author's wide-ranging explorations. Our National Monuments invites readers to experience for themselves these lands and learn about the people and cultures who came before, and to whom these lands are still sacred places. QT Luong is one of the most prolific photographers working in America's public lands and the author of Treasured Lands, the best-selling and acclaimed photography book about the national parks. Combining hundreds of his sumptuously printed photographs with essays from citizen conservation associations caring for these national treasures; including a foreword by former Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and photographs of marine national monuments from Ansel Adams award-winning photographer Ian Shive, the comprehensive portrayals of Our National Monuments help readers understand how these essential landscapes are preserving America's past and shaping its future.

Monuments around the world have become the focus of intense and sustained discussions, activism, vandalism, and removal. Since the convulsive events of 2015 and 2017, during which white supremacists committed violence in the shadow of Confederate symbols, and the 2020 nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, protesters and politicians in the United States have removed Confederate monuments, as well as monuments to historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Dr. J. Marion Sims, questioning their legitimacy as present-day heroes that their place in the public sphere reinforces. The essays included in this anthology offer guidelines and case studies tailored for students and teachers to demonstrate how monuments can be used to deepen civic and historical engagement and social dialogue. Essays analyze specific controversies throughout North America with various outcomes as well as examples of monuments that convey outdated or unwelcome value systems without prompting debate.