This book examines American public culture and the means by which communities in the U.S. reconstruct the past and reinterpret the present in the development of tourism. Norkunas shows how public culture is not confined to just museums or monuments, but can be constructed on many different levels and in different settings, such as community ethnicity, natural setting (environment), literary landscape, and history. In her case study of Monterey, the author explores the particular ideologies that prompt the community to represent itself in tourism, and that also act to legitimate the current social structure.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: An Intellectual Journey to the Politics of Culture

Ethnography and History: The Monterey Example

The Construction of Public History Texts

The Literary Landscape and the Industrial Past

Nature, History, and Ethnicity

Public History, Tourist Landscapes, and the Reconfiguration of Reality: Concluding Thoughts

Appendix: Site Descriptions of the Path of History

Bibliography

Index

Martha Norkunas is Cultural Affairs Director of the Lowell (MA) Historic Preservation Commission.