The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age [Hardcover]

Howard Mansfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

A wide-ranging inquiry into the nature and possibility of restoration.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A cross between Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic and James M. Lindgren's Preserving Historic New England, this volume delightfully investigates Americans' penchant for fixing up old stuff. New Hampshire journalist Mansfield (Skylark: The Life, Lies, and Inventions of Harry Atwood) introduces readers to engineers who spend their spare time trying to replicate the Wright brothers' original plane; to devotees of historic Deerfield (a colonial village come to life in Massachusetts); and to the tourists who visit places such as the Shaker Village in his hometown of Hancock, N.H., and Graceland. He eavesdrops on gravestone restorers musing about 17th-century slate headstones and provides tips for preserving photographs and furniture. (Don't place nectar-dripping flowers in a vase you want to last; blot--don't rub--at alcohol spilled on furniture; don't drag furniture if you care either about the chair or your floorboards). Similarly, Mansfield investigates the meaning of Old Home Day orations and auctioneers' rhythmic cadences and provocatively contrasts New England villages--of yesterday and today--with gated communities in the suburbs. Our fixation with restoration, he concludes, has meaning beyond the idle fascination of rich folks with nothing better to do than fix up old trunks and sleigh beds. Rather, as his subtitle suggests, we find renewal in our reclaiming of objects from the past. "The best restorations," writes Mansfield, "are truly restorative." Reading this book is equally so. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This meditation, which explores the nature of memory, history, and restoration, carries forward Mansfield's thesis from In Memory's House (1993) that a defining New England characteristic is the conviction that we choose our past. The title refers to a farmer who respects an ax so much that he replaces both blade and handle twice. Thus, the axe is both the same and totally different, the conclusion being that rebuilding an object accurately uncovers its essence. Through richly layered essays, Mansfield argues that only through living with the past can we keep it alive. Otherwise, as rootless beings we will inhabit a sterile, disposable world. The author parades before the reader numerous people and the things they have preserved, from a builder reassembling historic homes to a farmer preserving land for future generations. This beautiful, haunting work about people laboring to keep history's spring flowing is highly recommended for collections dealing with restoration and related issues.
-Nigel Tappin, Dwight, Ont.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: UPNE; First Edition edition (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584650281
• ISBN-13: 978-1584650287
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,679,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars treasure trove, May 29, 2000

By 

elizabeth thomas - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age (Hardcover)

Once again, Howard Mansfield has produced a brilliant book, as intelligent as it is vital, to show how our heritage is as much a part of us as is our DNA. We struggle to keep it going in a manner suggested by the title, which refers to a well-known story of a man with an ax. The handle breaks and the man replaces it, whereupon the ax head breaks and the man replaces that too. Does the man then have the same ax, or does he have a new one? An arguement could be made either way, but the important aspect of the story is that the man has the ax he needs and has never been without it. For us, the world is our ax, and is breaking apart even as we watch. We want to mend it. We want to keep what we are losing, so we carefully move old houses from the paths of bulldozers, board by board and brick by brick; we form large societies to reenacte battles of the Civil War, the armies outfitted in exact regalia down to the buttons. Such ongoing activity is not the same as the collections of relics found in museums (such as a stoppered vial containing Thomas Edison's last breath, for instance, a relic that Mansfield mentions by contrast.) We are closer to Thomas Edison when we replace a lightbulb than we are when we look at this vial of his breath. If the owner of the ax of the title had wanted a relic, he would have kept his broken ax to look at and acquired a new one to chop wood. No--he mended his old ax. And with our restorational activities, we are trying to mend the word, something that we human beings long to do with every fibre in us. Environmental magazines seem not to have noticed this important fact, nor have any of the preservationist publications. In contrast, Mansfield shows us something extremely important about ourselves in this brilliant and very readable book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who is Howard Mansfield?, May 12, 2001

By 

John Martin "Exploring the worlds of wine, sp... (Houston TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age (Hardcover)

This is not the kind of book I usually read. It's probably not the kind of book that **anyone** usually reads. I bought it because of a favorable review in the New York Times. The review made the book sound good and, what do you know, the book really is good.

Now, I'll never renovate a house. I'll never live in a log cabin or an old stone house. I don't want to live in New England or visit Walden Pond or petition city hall to save an old building. But when I read this book, I found out I was a "Noah." (A "Noah" is someone, according to Mansfield, who tries to preserve things that are beautiful or useful from extinction.)

I encourage you to read this book as an allegory for renewal in your own life. What important things in your own world are threatened by what's new? What can you do to preserve those things you find useful as they're encroached upon by change?

My norm is to buy books on Amazon.com and then sell them on half.com to support my habit. But not this book! This book is staying on my shelf. I'll read it again whenever I'm in need of inspiration or creative insight.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lot more than museums and collections, April 3, 2001

By 

J. Coelho - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age (Hardcover)

While parts of the book went deeper than my interest, much of it was sheer poetry. The author makes his case, which is better described in some of the other reviews than I could relate.

Tools that once belonged to my father and grandfather always seem to work a little better than the ones I've bought. If you've ever had the same feeling, you'll like the book.