Death at the Edges of Empire
A brief description of my book Death at the Edges of Empire. Available @ the University of Nebraska Press: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9781496201843/
Praise:
"Shannon Bontrager has written an intricate, impressive book about mourning, memory, and national identity. Some facets of his story are familiar, but he extends the sweep of his analysis in fresh and provocative directions, enlarging it, as the title suggests, to the edges of the American empire."—W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Civil War Book Review
"Though a work of history, Death at the Edges of Empire ultimately raises questions about the present: Are we too divided to do war memorials anymore? And if so, are honest forms of commemoration even possible?"—Randall Fuller, Wall Street Journal
"This is would be an excellent book for a graduate level seminar in American historical geography or American cultural memory. . . . Geographers who study cultural memory will be especially interested in the skillful analysis of how memory moves and takes shape across places at different scales to justify the American imperial project."—Jordan P. Brasher, Journal of Historical Geography
"This innovative work—part intellectual history and part memory study—reveals the shifting cultural landscape of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America and the crucial of role of military cemeteries within this national, transatlantic, and transpacific narrative."—Tracy L. Barnett, North Carolina Historical Review
“Shannon Bontrager’s Death at the Edges of Empire joins a list of other seminal works on war and memory, such as Kristin Hass’s Carried to the Wall. He shows the importance of culture on shaping American narratives regarding war. It is a very important addition to the literature. Highly recommended!”—Kyle Longley, author of Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam
“Dense and absorbing. I’m particularly impressed by Bontrager’s deft rhetorical analysis of various speeches—many of them by presidents—delivered at remembrance functions between 1863 and 1921. . . . This is an effective way of tracking the ideological twists and turns in American war commemoration. In addition, the author knows how to tell a story. Some of my favorite sections of this book are simply compelling narratives.”—Steven Trout, professor of English at the University of South Alabama
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Lincoln’s Promise
Part 1. Storage
1. Where the Grapes of Wrath Are Stored
2. The Nation, a Monument of Empire
3. Remembering Domestic Foreign Spaces
Part 2. Retrieval
4. Retrieve the Maine!
5. Memories of a Foreign Land
Part 3. Communication
6. Exiles of American Cultural Memory
7. Cultural Memory in the Information Age
8. That Cause Shall Not Be Betrayed
9. Listening to Empire
Epilogue: Reclaiming Lincoln’s Promise?
Appendix A: Stops in D. H. Rhodes’s Tour of the Philippines
Appendix B: Stops in F. S. Croggon’s Tour of the Philippines
Notes
Bibliography
Index
