Reviews

“At war with the dispersing seas of time, Benjamin Hruska provides a rich example-filled and exploratory guide to thinking and commemorating contemporary maritime history. His audience encompasses not just museum keepers and exhibition designers, politicians and historians, but individual sailors, families, friends and companions who seek to remember, honor, and narrate their heroes and dead. Keenly aware how fragile the threading kick of memory and the very vessels, objects, and agencies of remembrance— sailors, ships, navies, and nations themselves—Hruska passionately seeks the objects, mediums, and agencies that furnish platforms for remembering maritime lives, events, and fates. He draws his examples of successful display not just from preeminent contemporary maritime powers like Great Britain and the United States but other nations and groups that have reason to remember, honor, and narrate wars, commerce, and adventures that risked life and fortunes in the swells of water and time.”

Joseph A. Amato, Professor Emeritus, Southwest Minnesota State University and Author of Everyday Life: How the Ordinary Became Extraordinary

“Public historians engaged in presenting and interpreting naval history should have this book on their shelves for both information and inspiration. And other individuals with just a general interest in the art and craft of interpreting the American past will also find this book surprisingly relevant. Narratives of salt and fresh water history and the places that interpret them, Ben Hruska shows, have significance for us all in ways we have never imagined.”

Dennis A. O’Toole, Ph.D., Co-founder, Cañada Alamosa Institute

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