The temples of Abu Simbel have long fascinated travelers since they became known to the Western world in the 19th century. In this lavishly illustrated book, Dr. Zahi Hawass, one of the worlds best known Egyptologists, offers extensive information on these magnificent monuments, their builder Ramseses II, and their elaborate relocation in the 1960...more

This book is the first comprehensive treatment in any language of the most consequential work of art ever to be executed in Russia-the equestrian monument to Peter the Great, or The Bronze Horseman, as it has come to be known since it appeared in Alexander Pushkin's poem bearing that title. The author deals with the cultural setting that prepared ...more

Jenny Edkins explores how we remember traumatic events such as wars, famines, genocides and terrorism. She argues that remembrance does not have to be nationalistic but can instead challenge the political systems that produced the violence. Using examples from the World Wars, Vietnam, the Holocaust, Kosovo and September 11th, Edkins analyzes the p...more

Is it “Stalinist” for a formerly communist country to tear down a statue of Stalin? Should the Confederate flag be allowed to fly over the South Carolina state capitol? Is it possible for America to honor General Custer and the Sioux Nation, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln? Indeed, can a liberal, multicultural society memorialize anyone at ...more

How do some monuments become so socially powerful that people seek to destroy them? After ignoring monuments for years, why must we now commemorate public trauma, but not triumph, with a monument? To explore these and other questions, Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin assembled essays from leading scholars about how monuments have functioned throu...more

Napoleon Bonaparte celebrated his conquest of Egypt in 1798 by commissioning a survey of the country's treasures published as the "Description de l'Egypte". An army of engravers collaborated with artist-illustrators over a 30-year period to produce 900 folio engravings of huge proportions depicting the architecture, monuments and antiquities of anc...more

The democratic election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa in 1994 marked the demise of apartheid and the beginning of a new struggle to define the nation’s past. History after Apartheid analyzes how, in the midst of the momentous shift to an inclusive democracy, South Africa’s visual and material culture represented the past while...more