How historic sites can foster community dialogue about who we have been, who we are now, and who we wish to be

In a moment shaped by alarming levels of national polarization and disembodied lives spent increasingly online, this book argues that historic sites—courthouses, churches, walking trails, house museums, local monuments—are the best public resource available for spurring productive dialogue about the American past, present, and future. This volume’s wide-ranging essays—surveying a variety of local historical sites across the nation, from James Madison’s plantation at Montpelier to the former Japanese internment camp Manzanar—are complemented by discussions with directors and curators doing critical preservation and interpretive work on the ground today. They call those who care about healthy democracy and civic engagement to the work at hand. Historic sites, as the contributors to this collection show, are ideal venues for conversations about shared principles, our national successes and failures, and the importance of the local to binding together the nation.