A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community (American Association for State and Local History) [Paperback]

Robert R. Archibald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0761989439 | ISBN-13: 978-0761989431

Well-known public historian Robert Archibald's personal exploration of the intersections of history, memory, and community reveals how we participate in the making and sustaining of community as well as how we remember the community that shaped us. Writing in a rich literary narrative, Archibald blends local history, personal reminiscence, and an analysis of the changing meaning of community with a passionate call for more effective public history. A Place to Remember poetically illustrates how we are active participants in the past and the role and importance of history in contemporary life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Archibald thinks that the time has come when public history organizations will be asked to take more responsibility in facilitating methods of doing public business. The skills needed to achieve consensus must inevitably take into account those experiences in the collective past which further understanding. His book is worth reading and studying by museum staffs and historical society boards, and I would urge that they circulate a copy and discuss it. (McDonald, Lois H. California Historian )

This is a provocative book by an original historian whose personal voice and reflections will...grab readers...as human beings and historians at deeper levels than most books....My basic reaction was gratitude for being invited to think in fresh ways about problems all historians face as professionals and human beings. (David Thelen The Journal Of American History )

For anyone interested in history, and especially those involved with local historical societies, museums, and archives or with the preservation of historic places and sites, A Place to Remember is a worthwhile and inspired reminder to step back for a moment to view the essential role of history in our lives and communities, how it gives meaning to the present and connects us to the future. (Allan Kent Powell Utah Historical Quarterly )

Archibald's quest for a public history that can produce empathy is stimulating and important....Written for a broad audience....A thought-provoking and creative work. (Alison Landsberg The American Historical Review )

This is a book that challenges public historians to think differently about their work and to define the very purpose of history as a component of civic culture. Whether we agree or disagree with his methods and conclusions, Archibald has offered a new vision for the role of history in our society. (Barbara Franco The Public Historian )

Part meditation, part memoir, part social analysis, part panegyric, and a call to arms for all of us working in the field of public history.... Museums of all kinds would benefit from having key professional staff and trustees read this book. (Ian Quimby )

As historical organizations, such as the Organization of American Historians, reach out to involve more teachers of history at the secondary level and those working in public institutions, this book presents a wealth of ideas and examples by an impassioned leader in the public history field. (Katie H. Armitage )

While Archibald's message is aimed mainly at public historians and covers topics and issues with which both public and academic historians have wrestled for years, it should appeal to any reader interested in sustaining diverse communities in a complex world. (Kansas History )

About the Author

Since 1988 Robert R. Archibald has been president and CEO of the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis, Missouri. An active member of many professional and community organizations and author of The New Town Square: Museums and Communities in Transition (AltaMira 2004), he writes and speaks on numerous topics from history and historical practice to community building and environmental responsibility.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press (July 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761989439
• ISBN-13: 978-0761989431
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #564,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Giving us inspiration for the future of the community, April 1, 2000

By 

Tabitha Gregory (Valdez, Alaska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community (American Association for State and Local History) (Paperback)

It's a struggle to find balance between "progress" and quality of life. It's also a struggle to retain our connections to the past and try to fit them into our lives today. In searching for some "quick" answers to how the museum I manage could answer some of these questions and how we can continue to be relevant to the community we serve, I read this book. It, of course, doesn't provide any quick solutions, but instead provides a heap of ideas and a strong philosophy to base activities & programs on. I read it as a museum professional, BUT found alot in it for my role as a community member. I'd definitely recommend the book for anyone interested in strengthening their community or finding common ground between community groups. The book does not read like a "how to" book. It's beautifully written, but still practical. A quick quote from the book: "Remembering confirms our attachments to each other".

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to Remember, April 12, 2000

By 

Jack D. Elliott, Jr. (Mississippi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community (American Association for State and Local History) (Paperback)

Historical societies and preservation organizations have proliferated in recent decades. This undoubtedly arises from a humanly-shared experiential depth, a depth that Robert Archibald, examines in this brooding look at the deeply interconnected relation between personal experience and community, time, and place.

The narrative is framed around Archibald's return to his boyhood home of Ishpeming, Michigan where he revisits once familiar places: a store run by a 96 year-old woman, a nearby cemetery, an abandoned family camphouse, the shore of Lake Michigan, and others. These had helped to form him, and each represented a different insight into time and community.

Professionally trained as an historian, his career has primarily been devoted to public history, in effect working with the public experience of history. This perspective forced him to question "the mantle of objective distance" that was demanded by his academic training. Reading widely he came to recognize the importance of memory in that "[t]o be human is to struggle to make sense of our own pasts as a means of establishing identity and forming relationships with the world we inhabit." (p. 30)

He returned to his home town to reflect upon the processes of his memory and the way in which his life had been formed by the events, people, and places that made up the world of his childhood. From this emerged his understanding that "[t]he community we create is founded in shared remembrance and grounded in place, especially those places that are conducive to the casual associations necessary for emergence of shared memory, common ground, and commitment to the common good." (p. 24) Consequently, he decries our failure to see history and place as formative, in that past experience is "the only guide we have" (p. 113), therefore, "[t]he point to the past will be lost and humanity imperiled if in our relativistic timidity we refuse to draw conclusions from the past and if we persist in the belief that the tens of thousands of years of human life on the crust of this planet have no guideposts to offer us." (pp. 120-121)

Archibald proposes four "core values" as organizing principles for public history: memory, transcendence, sustainability, and mutual obligation. All of these warrant considerable discussion, which is unfortunately beyond the scope of this review.

In the vast forest of publications, this book stands out; it is simultaneously wise, compassionate, prophetic, and a good read. It is a must for those involved in public history, historic preservation, and cultural resource management.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars concerned about a failing sense of community?, May 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community (American Association for State and Local History) (Hardcover)

A historian by profession, Dr. Archibald helps us to see that history is not just a summary of those moments that have already passed, it is also a sort of encrypted blueprint to the future. It humbly guides us on our journey through time, and will even show us where we have gone astray. Dr. Archibald proficiently uncovers the secrets of the past, and identifies them as the truths upon which a sound future can be built