[Two hundred
years ago this week, the U.S.
declared war on the North African nation of Algiers, leading to the
unremembered conflict about which I wrote in Monday’s post. That
Second Barbary War is one of many such forgotten wars in American history,
and I’ll also highlight and AmericanStudy others for the remainder of the
week’s posts. Leading up to a special weekend post responding to a relevant
recent piece by one of my model AmericanStudiers.]
Three impressive
sites and pieces on the 150th anniversary of an event that seriously
complicates any easy or simplistically good-and-evil narratives of the Civil War:
3)
And an NPR
story on the Colorado governor’s apology, and how it reflects some of our
contemporary engagement with these histories.
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other under-remembered conflicts you’d highlight?
Ben, tracing Colorado's own commemoration of Sand Creek is an interesting journey in and of itself. Much as I hate to give credit to the New Republic for anything, here's an interesting article on the Colorado State Capitol building's own remembrance of the conflict:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newrepublic.com/article/120441/statue-celebrated-sand-creek-massacre
Thanks Andrew! Seems like one of those places where Michael Kammen's distinction between celebratory commemoration and more critical remembrance gets particularly complicated and interesting.
ReplyDeleteBen