Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered [Hardcover]

Jesse Larner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Nation Books | Publication Date: February 9, 2002

There are complex stories behind those faces on Mount Rushmore that have been edited out of the guidebooks and textbooks. There is the story of how the land on which Rushmore stands was expropriated from the Lakota Sioux in 1877, abrogating a major treaty. There is the story of the sculpture’s creator and ideologue, Gutzon Borglum, a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, who saw in the expansion of European settlement across the American West the fulfillment of white racial destiny. Rushmore is prefigured in the story of Custer, who sealed the fate of the Black Hills when he discovered gold there in 1874. Larner traces the meaning and evolution of the Custer battle commemorations, and pursues the ways in which Custer's defeat, the killings at Wounded Knee, and Rushmore, are linked in the story of the Indians’ loss of the Black Hills. Mount Rushmore also traces modern political uses of the monument, from Cold War television broadcasts to Boy Scout conventions to political campaigns. It looks at Rushmore's semi-religious status as the national shrine of Democracy, and contrasts this with political restrictions on the practice of Indian religions in the Black Hills. Finally, Larner deals with previous works on Rushmore that have avoided its message of conquest, preferring to focus on a simplistic narrative of national glory. Even the tour guides at Rushmore understand little of its real history, or of the legal fact that the land from which it rises belongs to the Lakota.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The land, people, and history framing Mount Rushmore, situated in the Black Hills in South Dakota, not far from where Custer died, prove to be every bit as complex and fundamentally crazy-American as the presidents memorialized there. Larner finds that Sioux and Euro-Americans live out the Rushmore experience in predictably different yet unpredictably specific ways. Larner's jump-around meditations on Manifest Destiny and its discontents move from 1970s American Indian Movement activism to 1920s Ku Klux Klan backroom campaigning to 1870s gold-rushing. Unhindered by narrative linearity, Larner situates Crazy Horse the never-photographed mystic warrior and Gutzon Borglum the fantastical public sculptor as the ultimate stars of a multiethnic ensemble of the powerful, victimized, and honestly ambivalent and ties it all together with great ideological discipline and briskly paced prose. Appreciative readers of contemporary political-travel journalism can only hope Larner forgoes a career in academia his publisher identifies him as a graduate student in international relations and instead follows the freelancer's quest. An auspicious debut; recommended for libraries of all types. Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll., PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

We all know Mount Rushmore: the mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota into which a visionary artist, working by himself, carved the faces of four American presidents as a tribute to American democracy. As with most familiar stories, this one is a mixture of truth and legend. Gutzon Borglum, Rushmore's creator, was indeed a noted sculptor; he was also (briefly) a highly placed member of the Ku Klux Klan. But he did not work alone: a large crew of artisans did the actual face carving, working from a model Borglum created. And Mount Rushmore is a tribute to one version of American democracy; Borglum was a proponent of manifest destiny, an expansionist doctrine that called for the eradication of the American Indian (the Black Hills themselves were appropriated from the Lakota). In fact, Mount Rushmore, in many ways, was intended as a beacon of white superiority shining out from lands once owned by Indians. This eye-opening book will appeal to readers interested in American history as well as those concerned about the treatment of ethnic minorities. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; 1ST edition (February 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560253460
• ISBN-13: 978-1560253464
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,822,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Audacious, insightful, full of vitality, May 13, 2002

By 

UC Berkeley graduate student (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered (Hardcover)

Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered is sensational. Ambitious, provocative, and beautifully written, I stayed up late into the night reading this book, unable to put it down. Larner not only explores the meaning of Mt. Rushmore, but uses its history as a lens to reflect upon American values and experience. He elegantly weaves together past and present, taking us from the mid 1800s (when battles, negotiations, and a gold rush culminated in the US' conquest of the Black Hills territory in South Dakota), through the early 1900s (when the youthful nation was ripe for a monument celebrating the American spirit) to the present. Meticulously researched, Larner spent several years combing through archives and conducting interviews. He combines the serious scholar's rigor with the novelist's eye for detail. He has a good ear for dialog, a keen sense of irony, and quite a cast of characters - including gunfighters, fortune seekers, frontiersfolk, self-made men, Presidents, yellow journalists, captains of industry, the KKK, military legends like Custer and Sherman, Indian leaders such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, modern day civil libertarians, contemporary Indian rights advocates, as well as the colorful and complicated sculptor who dreamed up Mt. Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum. If there's one thing that historians and social scientists have agreed upon over the last 20 years, it's that you have to understand multiple perspectives to be accurate and fair. As a graduate student, it is his success on this front that I find most impressive. He respects his subjects, developed a rapport with many of them, yet was able to remain distant enough to draw critical assessments. As a result, the book is unusually objective and subtle. He reveals unsavory facts from our history which are neither honorable nor befitting of a democracy - Americans broke a signed treaty when they took the Black Hills without the Indian's consent; the belief in white supremacy justified a series of brutal policies well into the 1900s (e.g., children were ripped away from their parents and forcefully sent to boarding schools, women were sterilized, rations were withheld); Mt. Rushmore itself was intended by its creator, paradoxically, as a monument to both democracy and white superiority; the legacy of conquest still has tragic consequences for many Indians; Indians continue to have to fight against second class status. But at the same time, he reminds us of the things we can be proud of - Americans' ingenuity, energy, entrepreneurialism, our values such as liberty and equality. A story he tells at the end of the book about the awkward handling of a controversial painting in the South Dakota governor's office suggests that many people still cling to yesterday's unquestioning style of patriotism. This book demonstrates loud and clear that the old patriotism is open to challenge. Honesty and justice demand that the nation recognize and respect its diverse perspectives of the American experience . Keep your eyes on Jesse Larner. I'm predicting we'll be hearing lots more from him.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lively, serious, compelling book, February 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered (Hardcover)

I am a semi-retired teacher, correspondant and American history buff who's finally worked and read his way across to the west coast. Hidebound readers may object, but Larner sees the settlement of the West as a history of battles, movements, wild emotional contests and paradoxical beliefs. For this still-hungry reader, it was a real sleeper of a book and I hope it opens up some eyes! Larner pulls up great stories from roaming the region and digging in dusty, buried archives. He is not politically driven or conventional, not one-sided like the usual plodders of the right or left, pathetic super-patriots or blame-the-US subversives or the correct of any congregation. I'm not surprised that true believers are up in arms! To myself, it's true to the ongoing American spirit to question our heroes and monuments, shake out the trappings of mythology, celebrate what stands the test of time and resurrect those who went the course without PR via Eastern newspapers and politicians! The West...as old Mark Twain for one knew...was made by rascals, fools and bullies as well as brave hearts who hung in there for freedom and equality. And Larner...like the Kansan writer Evan Connell...does not overlook the Native Americans who were custodians of the hills and plains...he takes pains with how they saw things as they stood up to the waves of conquest, and how they stand in its wake. But he glorifies no one... his aim is to show us forces and events for what they were and are...including but not overshadowed by trumpeted symbolism. If you read just to confirm your beliefs, you're too ... old for this book. Mt Rushmore, like America itself, is more than what its keepers cry, or what its promoters proclaim...more than 4 great old physiognomies presiding Westward. A tribe of tears and sweat and hard laughter went into the Black Hills, a ton of grit and gravel rolled down the mountain. It's time a young guy came along, talked to the ghosts, heard the living voices...and started to clear away the debris.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this book for real!, February 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered (Hardcover)

I am a semi-retired teacher, correspondant and American history buff who's finally worked and read his way across to the west coast. Hidebound readers may object, but Larner sees the settlement of the West as a history of battles, movements, wild emotional contests and paradoxical beliefs. For this still-hungry reader, it was a real sleeper of a book and I hope it opens up some eyes! Larner pulls up great stories from roaming the region and digging in dusty, buried archives. He is not politically driven or conventional, not one-sided like the usual plodders of the right or left, pathetic super-patriots or blame-the-US subversives or the correct of any congregation. I'm not surprised that true believers are up in arms! To myself, it's true to the ongoing American spirit to question our heroes and monuments, shake out the trappings of mythology, celebrate what stands the test of time and resurrect those who went the course without PR via Eastern newspapers and politicians! The West...as old Mark Twain for one knew...was made by rascals, fools and bullies as well as brave hearts who hung in there for freedom and equality. And Larner...like the Kansan writer Evan Connell...does not overlook the Native Americans who were custodians of the hills and plains...he takes pains with how they saw things as they stood up to the waves of conquest, and how they stand in its wake. But he glorifies no one... his aim is to show us forces and events for what they were and are...including but not overshadowed by trumpeted symbolism. If you read just to confirm your beliefs, you're too damn old for this book. Mt Rushmore, like America itself, is more than what its keepers cry, or what its promoters proclaim...more than 4 great old physiognomies presiding Westward. A tribe of tears and sweat and hard laughter went into the Black Hills, a ton of grit and gravel rolled down the mountain. It's time a young guy came along, talked to the ghosts, heard the living voices...and started to clear away the debris.