Places of Pain and Shame

Places of Pain and Shame
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 305
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781134051496
ISBN-13 : 1134051492
Rating : 4/5 (96 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Places of Pain and Shame by : William Logan

Download or read book Places of Pain and Shame written by William Logan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-12-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Places of Pain and Shame is a cross-cultural study of sites that represent painful and/or shameful episodes in a national or local community’s history, and the ways that government agencies, heritage professionals and the communities themselves seek to remember, commemorate and conserve these cases – or, conversely, choose to forget them. Such episodes and locations include: massacre and genocide sites, places related to prisoners of war, civil and political prisons, and places of ‘benevolent’ internment such as leper colonies and lunatic asylums. These sites bring shame upon us now for the cruelty and futility of the events that occurred within them and the ideologies they represented. They are however increasingly being regarded as ‘heritage sites’, a far cry from the view of heritage that prevailed a generation ago when we were almost entirely concerned with protecting the great and beautiful creations of the past, reflections of the creative genius of humanity rather than the reverse – the destructive and cruel side of history. Why has this shift occurred, and what implications does it have for professionals practicing in the heritage field? In what ways is this a ‘difficult’ heritage to deal with? This volume brings together academics and practitioners to explore these questions, covering not only some of the practical matters, but also the theoretical and conceptual issues, and uses case studies of historic places, museums and memorials from around the globe, including the United States, Northern Ireland, Poland, South Africa, China, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Timor and Australia.


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