The Lincoln Memorial and American Life
Thomas's lucid, revealing, and amply illustrated book gives a  full-bodied life history of the Lincoln Memorial, with an eye to  the ways various political, social, architectural, and artistic  interests claimed and used the memorial to push their own ideas  about nation, race, aesthetics, and social justice. Thomas  (history of art, Univ. of Victoria, British Columbia) looks at  the whole of the memorial, including the inscribed tablets,  murals, building, and even landscape and location on the Mall,  to show how and why the memorial came to dominate the public  imagination. In the process of conceiving and then building the  project, as Thomas argues, the memorialized Lincoln moved from  being the symbol of sectional reconciliation, to aggressive  statesman in the Theodore Roosevelt mold, to emancipator and  more. By the 1960s, the memorial had become the symbol for civil  rights and human justice that went beyond party or any one  person. Thomas devotes considerable attention to issues of  design and appearance, all to good effect, in showing how  "beauty" informed belief. The result is a book that gives life  and meaning to the great marbled temple on the Mall and reminds  us how contested "memory" was and can be. Highly recommended for  all libraries. Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ.,  PhiladelphiaCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.