Speaker Series: "Monument Wars" with Author Kirk Savage

Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape tells the story, spanning over 200 years of American history, of how the capital city's public monuments and monumental landscape have been politicized, fought over, and ultimately transformed. The book chronicles the aspirations, insecurities, conflicts, and achievements of an often divided, ever striving nation.

Kirk Savage will discuss his critically acclaimed work on the transformation of Washington, DC's memorial landscape. NCPC will also introduce "Washington as Commemoration," a new study conducted with the National Park Service surveying the themes represented in the capital's commemorative works.

Mr. Savage is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh. He writes for academic and general audiences on why we erect monuments and what they mean to us. His 1997 book, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, won the John Hope Franklin Prize for best book published in American Studies in 1998.

Cosponsored by Smithsonian American Art Museum