Curating America: Journeys through Storyscapes of the American Past

How do history museums and historic sites tell the richly diverse stories of the American people? What fascinates us most about American history?To help answer these questions, noted public historian Richard Rabinowitz examines the evolution of public history over the last half-century and highlights the new ways we have come to engage with our past. At the heart of this endeavor is what Rabinowitz calls storyscapeslandscapes of engagement where individuals actively encounter stories of past lives. As storyscapes, museums become processes of narrative interplay rather than moribundstorage bins of strange relics. Storyscapes bring to life even the most obscure peoplemaking their skills of hands and minds touchable, making their voices heard despite their absence from traditional archives, and making the dilemmas and triumphs of their lives accessible to us today.

Rabinowitzs wealth of professional experiencecreating over 500 history museums, exhibitions, and educational programs across the nationshapes and informs the narrative. By weaving insights from learning theory, anthropology and geography, politics and finance, collections and preservation policy, and interpretive media, Rabinowitz reveals how the nations best museums and historic sites allow visitors to confront their sense of time and place, memories of family and community, and definitions of self and the world while expanding their idea of where they stand in the flow of history. See more