Between the sixth and twentieth centuries, the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino (est. 529) experienced a cycle of atrocities which forever transformed its identity. This book examines how such a tumultuous history has been constructed, remembered, and represented from the Middle Ages to the present day. It uses this singular and pivotal case to analyse the historical process of remembering and its impact on modern representations of the past. Exactly how Monte Cassino is remembered is distinctive and diagnostic. The abbey is recognizable today as a beacon of western civilization, culture, and learning precisely because of its 'destruction tradition' over fourteen centuries. This book asks how the abbey's fragmented past has been ideologically, politically, and culturally constituted and preserved; how its experience with destruction and suffering - and recovery and rebirth - has become incorporated into a modern narrative of progress and triumph.

Kriston R. Rennie is Dean, Faculty of Indigenous Studies, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Northern British Columbia.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Prologue: The Oak Tree
Part I: Animus and Anchor
Chapter 1 - An Enigma: The Legend of Saint Benedict
Chapter 2 - The 'Citadel of Campania': Growth and Prosperity
Part II: Rise and Fall
Chapter 3 - A Destiny Repeated: Episodes of Destruction
Chapter 4 - Floreat Semper: Rebuilding, Stone by Stone
Part III: Preservation and Valorization
Chapter 5 - The People's Patrimony: Defining Historical Value
Chapter 6 - A New Europe: Erasing the Destruction
Epilogue: Lighthouse
Index