Thompson, Erin

Narrator Heather Masters’s clear voice, excellent enunciation, and measured delivery allow the often shocking stories behind some of the United States’ most famous monuments, such as the U.S. Capitol Building’s Freedom Statue and Mount Rushmore, to stand on their own.

Worthily preceded by Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone and David Gobel and Daves Rossell’s Commemoration in America, Thompson’s book underlines the need to evaluate public monuments, murals, and exhibits, to make them nexuses of learning rather than reinforcers of past beliefs.