front cover of Hard as the Rock Itself
Hard as the Rock Itself
Place and Identity in the American Mining Town
David Robertson
University Press of Colorado, 2006
The first intensive analysis of sense of place in American mining towns, Hard as the Rock Itself: Place and Identity in the American Mining Town provides rare insight into the struggles and rewards of life in these communities. David Robertson contends that these communities - often characterized in scholarly and literary works as derelict, as sources of debasing moral influence, and as scenes of environmental decay - have a strong and enduring sense of place and have even embraced some of the signs of so-called dereliction.

Robertson documents the history of Toluca, Illinois; Cokedale, Colorado; and Picher, Oklahoma, from the mineral discovery phase through mine closure, telling for the first time how these century-old mining towns have survived and how sense of place has played a vital role.

Acknowledging the hardships that mining's social, environmental, and economic legacies have created for current residents, Robertson argues that the industry's influences also have contributed to the creation of strong, cohesive communities in which residents have always identified with the severe landscape and challenging, but rewarding way of life.

Robertson contends that the tough, unpretentious appearance of mining landscapes mirrors qualities that residents value in themselves, confirming that a strong sense of place in mining regions, as elsewhere, is not necessarily wedded to an attractive aesthetic or even to a thriving economy.

Mining historians, geographers, and other students of place in the American landscape will find fascinating material in Hard As the Rock Itself.
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Heritage and Hate
Old South Rhetoric at Southern Universities
Stephen M. Monroe
University of Alabama Press, 2021
How southern universities continue to wrestle with the words and symbols that embody and perpetuate Old South traditions
 
The US South is a rhetorical landscape that pulsates with division, a place where words and symbols rooted in a deeply problematic past litter the ground and contaminate the soil. Stephen M. Monroe’s provocative study focuses on predominantly white southern universities where Old South rhetoric still reverberates, where rebel flags cast a shadow over attempts at racial harmony, school cheers to reinforce racial barriers, and student yearbooks to create and protect
an oppressive culture of exclusion. Across the region, in college towns like Oxford, Mississippi; Athens, Georgia; and Tuscaloosa, Alabama—communities remain locked in a difficult, recursive, and inherently rhetorical struggle that wrestles with this troubling legacy.

Words, images, and symbols are not merely passive artifacts of southern history, Monroe argues, but formative agents that influence human behavior and shape historical events. Drawing on research from many disciplines, including rhetoric, southern studies, history, sociology, and African American studies, Monroe develops the concept of confederate rhetoric: the collection of Old South words and symbols that have been and remain central to the identity conflicts of the South. He charts examples of such rhetoric at work in southern universities from Reconstruction to the present day.

Tracing the long life and legacy of Old South words and symbols at southern universities, this book provides close and nuanced analysis of the rhetorical conflicts that have resulted at places like the University of Mississippi and the University of Missouri. Some conflicts erupted during the civil rights movement, when the first African American students sought admission to all-white southern universities and colleges, and others are brewing now, as African
Americans (and their progressive white peers) begin to cement genuine agency and voice in these communities. Tensions have been, and remain, high.

Ultimately, Monroe offers hope and optimism, contending that if words and symbols can be used to damage and divide, then words and symbols can also be used to heal and unify. Racist rhetoric can be replaced by antiracist rhetoric. The old South can become new. While resisting naïve or facile arguments, Heritage and Hate ultimately finds the promise of progress within the tremendous power of language.
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Historic Preservation
Collective Memory and Historic Identity
Barthel, Diane
Rutgers University Press, 1996
Historic preservation is a cultural movement gaining momentum and adherents throughout Europe and the United States. How do we decide what to preserve and how to preserve? Who benefits from the efforts of preservationists, curators, developers, and other "symbolic bankers" to safeguard an increasing variety of structures for future generations? Diane Barthel raises these and other questions in this important new book. Taking a comparative approach, Barthel finds that preservation in Britain has largely been an elite enterprise aimed at preserving traditional values. In the United States, by contrast, the pattern is much more dynamic and democratic, though also more permeated by commercialism. Is preservation becoming another means of consuming history, like media representations or "historic" shopping outlets? Or does it have a special significance as a very tangible means of getting in touch with our collective and individual pasts? These and other issues--including war and remembrance, agrarian and industrial preservation, and religious preservation in a secular society--demonstrate the significance of what Barthel calls "the Preservation Project" and why we all have a stake in how our history is reconstructed and interpreted.
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Hong Kong in Revolt
Au Loong-Yu
Pluto Press, 2020
Hong Kong is in turmoil, with a new generation of young and politically active citizens shaking the regime. From the Umbrella Movement in 2014 to the defeat of the Extradition Bill and beyond, the protestors' demands have become more radical, and their actions more drastic. Their bravery emboldened the labor movement and launched the first successful political strike in half a century, followed by the broadening of the democratic movement as a whole. The book also sets the new protest movements within the context of the colonization, revolution and modernization of China. Au Loong-Yu explores Hong Kong's unique position in this history and the reaction the protests have generated on the Mainland. But the new generation's aspiration goes far beyond the political. It is a generation that strongly associates itself with a Hong Kong identity, with inclusivity and openness. Looking deeper into the roots and intricacies of the movement, the role of 'Western Values' vs 'Communism' and 'Hong Kongness' vs 'Chineseness', the cultural and political battles are understood through a broader geopolitical history. For good or for bad, Hong Kong has become one of the battle fields of the great historic contest between the US, the UK and China.
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