Customer Reviews

Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is an excellent volume; the introduction alone is
practically worth the price of the book. It is an accurate and
unflinching look at the town of Gettysburg and its history and
development since the battle. It will probably be unpopular
with the faction who prefer their history sugarcoated and
uncritical, but for those who seek the real history, this is it.
For many, Gettysburg has become a shrine to be revered, a
veritable home of saints and holy relics. This book looks at the complete picture, "warts and all," and it will especially
resonate with the "baby boomer" generation who came of age in the 1950's and 1960's. An excellent study and a fine
addition to the Gettysburg canon!

I really looked forward to getting this book; I have a keen interest in all things Gettysburg; the battle itself, the aftermath, the monuments, and the history of the battlefield and the park. Having just finished reading it, I have some mixed opinions about it.

On the plus side the material is extremely well researched...exhaustive, in fact. Weeks has an abundance of knowledge about the subject and introduces many hidden little gems of information that would be of interest to anyone who has visited Gettysburg and is fascinated in the history of the park and the town, and the commercial aspects of its history.

As for the negative impressions... it is obvious that the author is an extremely intelligent fellow with quite an extensive vocabulary.... and unfortunately he cannot resist the urge to display it at every turn, to the detriment of the subject at hand. While reading this book, I kept wondering if it was written to inform or to impress.

It would appear in the first section of the book as if the author receives a royalty for each use of the term "genteel"; it is used so frequently and with such abandon as to become almost farcical. Ditto with terms such as "quotidian", "insouciance" and endless variations of the word "edify". After awhile, the semantic gymnastics become simply annoying and tedious. Think of the singer who feels compelled to "interpret" the Star Spangled Banner with vocal histrionics as opposed to just singing the song, and you get an idea of the author's writing style.

Equally grating throughout is the author's inclination to make highly judgmental conclusions about the varied tourists over the years, their yearning for "moral uplift", etc. It is as though we are reading an anthropological treatise. Tourists visiting the park in cars become "automobilists", groups of visitors to the town and park become members of various "tribes". His subjective pronouncements about those visiting the town and the battlefield (particularly the re-enactors) become so infuriating that there were more than a few times that I needed to fight off the urge to hurl the book across the room.

This book has its merits...and could have been a terrific book, maybe even the definitive work on the subject, if only the author could get over himself. I have over the years read nearly 40 books related to Gettysburg, and I have never been as relieved to finally reach the end of a book as I was with "Gettysburg; Memory, Market and an American Shrine". For anyone who finds the history of the town and the battlefield park interesting, I would rather recommend Barbara Platt's excellent "This Is Holy Ground", which is vastly more readable and enjoyable than this too frequently verbose and pretentious essay.

Jim Weeks' has created a fascinating study of American culture, class, and capitalism, over the past one hundred and forty years by chronicling and dissecting our changing relationship to the Gettysburg Battlefield National Park. This shrine became a tourist attraction before the bodies were buried, and remains one of our best known national shrines and most popular of tourist attractions to this day. Yet for each generation, Gettysburg has had a different meaning, appealed to different social classes for different reasons, and has been marketed differently. Weeks has examined the changing appeal of Gettysburg to the American psyche to draw some conclusions on how we view our history and see ourselves through it, how and why we create our national myths, and, in short, how we imagine and re-imagine ourselves as a people.
This book hit close to home for me, because my childhood experience fit squarely within its scope. My father was a Civil War buff, and our family made several pilgrimages to Gettysburg. Numerous black and white photos show me as a kid posing with Yankee cap, sword and gun on various cannons and monuments throughout the park. Our oft told family legend even claims that Dad took Mom to Gettysburg on their honeymoon. When Weeks wrote chapter six; `Automobiles and Family Touring', he could have been working from our family albums.
This is a book of social historical criticism, and if you prefer to take our national mythology at face value rather than questioning it, you should probably pass on it. Weeks is aggressive, perhaps even elitist, in the way he questions our social conventions, and he seems to like to poke sacred cows just to hear them moo. None of that changes the fact that he has written a fascinating book full of intriguing ideas. Despite his somewhat arrogant tone, Weeks' book is well worth reading.

Theo Logos

I'm the type of person who is interested in the story after the story. So I was anxious to read Gettysburg: Memory, Market and an American Shrine by Jim Weeks. While the facts that he presents are quite interesting, the book bogged down with his sometimes totally inappropriate social commentary.

Weeks begins before the Civil War when genteel society spent their leisure time in parks and cemeteries. When 160,000 Confederate and Union troops converge on Gettysburg in what became the battle that changed the course of the war, Gettysburg would never be the same. Within days, hordes of people traveled to Gettysburg for a number of reasons. Some came to assist the injured and dying or to seek out missing loved ones. Others came to see the battlefield and to search for relics. This became the beginning of the evolution of Gettysburg as a national shrine.

Weeks does intensive research on how this little hamlet of 2500 people became the most visited National Park Service battlefield. The process was not without some growing pains as different groups vied for control and locals tried to cash in on the tourist trade. The author details how the face of tourism changed from visiting veterans to black groups celebrating emancipation to family vacationers and finally, to reenactors. The means of traveling also changed from trains to cars. But this book would have been much better if Weeks had just stuck to the facts.

I do agree with some of Weeks' criticisms. After just returning from a trip to Gettysburg, I believe there is just a little too much tourist trap honky-tonk to be found there. I also believe that the Battle of Gettysburg should not be celebrated as much as honored. And after looking at my fellow tourists, it does appear that Gettysburg appeals to mainly white men. Unfortunately, I feel the author goes way overboard. He claims that Gettysburg has actually become worse than Disney World for sanitized entertainment. Actually, the National Park Service has done much in recent decades to make the battlefields more authentic. Weeks heaps criticism on almost every group of visitors and is especially unrelenting about the recent reenactment trend. He claims white males have taken up this pastime because of the male-dominated society lost to them since "Feminism brought women into the male world of work" and because of "the competing minority culture." Weeks is especially stuck on the class system, and seems to lament the loss of "genteel society." In fact, he uses the word genteel ad nauseam. On page 58, genteel appears 13 times! Just to provide a brief example of part of the first paragraph:

"Thanks in part to the railroad, the genteel resort of the immediate postwar years gave way to one that included a broad cross-section of America, genteel and plebeian, black and white. Separate spaces catered to both genteel and working-class tastes, yet the genteel accommodated the plebeian. While the genteel agenda for constructing a park much like a rural cemetery..."

So if you're a hardcore history fan and you're interested in Gettysburg, you might find some use for Gettysburg: Memory, Market and an American Shrine. If not, I don't think it's worth the read.

The subject matter in this book is fascinating, particularly from one who works in the marketing department of a large company. It is full of details and provides an interesting alternate look at the development of the Gettysburg National Military Park and the tourist trade that accompanies it. The only drawback is the ponderous writing style; it can be quite difficult to read sometimes, causing the reader to backtrack in order to decipher without consulting the dictionary regularly. But that is easy to bypass as the information is extremely interesting and important to understanding why Gettysburg has become such a mecca for the history buff.

Almost immediately after the Battle of Gettysburg, (July 1 -- July 3, 1863), Americans recognized that a pivotal event in the Nation's history had occurred. The tactics and strategies used by the Armies, the significance of the Battle to the result of the Civil War and to the nature and purpose of our country continue to be debated vigorously.

Literally at the moment the armies left Gettysburg with the dead and wounded still on the field, tourists began to visit the battlefield, some to gape from curiosity and some to ponder the battle and its significance.

Jim Weeks's "Gettysburg: Memory, Market and an American Shrine" (2003) tells the story of tourism at Gettysburg and of its changes in character over the years as the United States changed. He sees a basic tension in Gettysburg visitors and in the manner in which Gettysburg is presented to its visitors. On the one hand, Gettysburg is a shrine, hallowed ground, commemorating an important event in our history. It is thus a place for contemplation and reflection about the American experience. On the other hand, Gettysburg is a tourist destination and a place of pleasure and commercialism Visitors come seeking souvenirs, good food, hotels, and entertainment. Those purveying the town and its attractions to the visitors are interested in earning a living and in commercial success.

Weeks does a good job tracing the relationship between these goals as he examines the history of tourist visits to Gettysburg. He shows how after the battle Gettysburg appealed to "genteel tourists" who had the leisure and means to travel. With the resurgence of veterans groups, the battlefield became bedecked with monuments which required leisure to read and to comtemplate. Shortly after the monmuments were constructed, more Americans began to share in the benefits of prosperity. They sought entertainment at Gettysburg and mass attractions with the coming of the railroads. In the mid-20th century, American culture changed again with the onset of the automobile and the onset of family touring with children. The new century, Weeks argues, sees a more framgmented United States, with Gettysburg appealing primarily to men, to reenactors of Battles and to Civil War hobbyists and "buffs".

Weeks book is well-documented. He offers the reader a good factual overview of the history of Gettysburg tourism and relates it well, on the whole, to trends in American society. His book is also thoughtful and his points worth considering even when the reader may disagree with him.

A major problem I found with this book was in what I found to be its patronizing voice. Weeks is surely right to emphasize how changes in society have affected the way Americans view Gettysburg and what those who visit the battlefield expect from their trip. However, as he passes through the various kinds of tourism over the years at Gettysburg, Weeks adopts an overly-mocking tone. For every type of tourist and era of tourism, Weeks is critical. He is adept at pointing out the shorcomings of individual visions, but not emphatic enough in understanding what it is that brought people to Gettysburg over the years and why this was valuable, with our without the commercialism and the foibles of each individual age. He plays different visions of Gettysburg off one against the other and is particularly critical of modern tourism and what he sees as the cult of "heritage" and "authenticity". Some sense of charity and symphathy with the diverse goals people have had in visiting Gettysburg -- the pleasurable and the uplifting -- would have been welcome.

I found this book a good factual history. I found the book's tone and its way of analyzing and presenting the facts less than convincing.

Most pretentious and more or less condescending work I've ever read. It is in need of a severe editing, if you read it you will have a nervous reaction to the word "genteel" - I am hoping this rash will go away. I feel sorry for his students. I assume he drives a Mini-Cooper.

I'm trying to think of something good to say about this book but truth is I really can't. This is the worst book about Gettysburg I have ever read....and I've read quite a few. The goal of the book I thought was to trace the history of Gettysburg and how tourism and America's view of it has changed in relation to it. I couldn't wait to get this book when I read about it. I am an avid reader about Gettysburg and I was very much interested in reading this different viewpoint about it and it's history. Unfortunately this book is more of an liberalistic view of American culture using Gettysburg as a backdrop, and a rather egotistical one at that.

Weeks can't help but talking down anyone and everyone associated with Gettysburg. They all seem to be below his level of understanding. The tourists who visit the battlefield are ignorants who should be going to Disneyland instead and the battlefield is now nothing but a theme park, at least according to Weeks. He even makes fun of people talking about Gettysburg on the Internet in discussion groups. Re-enactors, preservationists and park officials all are criticized by Weeks who talks condescending about all of them. He is incapable of hiding his belief that he is intellectually superior to them. I'm not a Re-enactor but I'm sure those that are are not nearly the nit wits that Weeks makes them out to be.

As for the writing style, the book has all the dryness of a high school text book. Weeks has a tendency to ramble and to make matters worse he doesn't give the reader any credit for intelligence (no surprise since he doesn't give anyone in the book credit for intelligence either). To make sure we understand the point he is trying to make he will make it over and over again.

I really did have high hopes for this book but unfortunately it failed to live up to any of my expectations. There are a lot of great books about Gettysburg out there. This isn't one of them.

"A Reader from the United States" couldn't be more wrong about
"Gettysburg" by Jim Weeks. It is the best discussion I've read of the evolution of an important historic site withiin the context of America's culture of consumption. It is especially good on the craze for "authenticity" that has developed since the 1970s, which is probably why "Reader" dislikes the book since he/she sounds like a reenactor. This is a worthwhile book that anyone interested in public history should read.

This is the best account of the evolution of a historic site during its "museum period" that I've read. It traces the development of the site through four periods following the actual battle to the present day, recounting how diverse and often competing "producers" defined and re-defined its meaning in response to changes in America's consumer culture. This is a minor masterpiece in the growing literature on collective memory and public history.