Pasts in Public
The words on our cover this month-"Pasts in Public"-allude to an increasingly pronounced sense among historians that engaging in civic life as historians is a responsibility of democratic citizenship. A number of articles in this issue wrestle with interpreting the past in public, particularly Evan A. Kutzler's analysis of the presentation of complicated histories to visitors at the Andersonville National Historic Site, located on the grounds of a massive Confederate prison camp. As Kutzler shows, public historians' efforts to presenta multifaceted interpretation of the US Civil War's deadliest site often clash with the attitudes and knowledge that visitors bring with them. The past in public, in other words, is fraught with challenges. Image: Two Pairs of Unidentified Soldiers in Union Shell Jackets (between 1861 and 1865)/Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Library of Congress.
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