Theorists on nationalism and state-formation have struggled with understanding the ways and reasons that individual citizens attach themselves to nations. Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities struggles to answer these questions, to define the ways that individuals imagine themselves as part of a national community. Anderson attempts to understand the relationship that people have with nationalism. He tries to understand what makes it possible "over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings." Anderson, and other theorists, maintain that it is difficult to answer this question because of problems with evidence. It is often difficult to ascertain individual's motivations or emotional attachments to abstract concepts like nation. However, an analysis of the effect on museum visitors of the nationalistic implicit and explicit messages in a museum exhibit will give a new scope to Anderson's analysis and other theorists on nationalism. The goal of this paper will be to discuss visitor responses to the exhibit, "The Enola Gay," at the National Air and Space Museum, the controversy over that exhibit and the creation of national identity in light of Anderson's assertions and suggestions in Imagined Communities.

Studying comment cards and visitor responses to "The Enola Gay" enhances the study of the relationship of individuals and nationalism. Comment cards for the exhibit, "The Enola Gay", were short, individual, responses left by some visitors at the end of the exhibit. Occasionally museums will leave cards with directed questions to which the visitor responds. This was not the case. The exhibit comment cards were 3-by-5 index cards. Being undirected, the comment cards complicate arguments over nationalism. The variety of resopnses show an engaged and conflicted citizenry who both accept and reject tenets of state driven nationalism. Analysis of the comment cards can flesh out the debate on the relationship between citizens and the state. The audience comment cards reveal a personal and intimate glimpse of the formation of American national sentiment in a manner that other theorists on nationalism, including Anderson, have not yet fully explored. The comment cards reveal a contentious and collaborative imagining of American nationalism -- one which exists, however, still within the boundaries that are constructed by the state and the institution of the museum.

In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson maintains that museums (along with the map and the census ) provide an illustration of one of the ways in which colonial states and emerging nations defined themselves and their relationships with citizens. Anderson sees the role of museums as part of the colonial states' nation building policies. The census, map and museum "profoundly shaped the way in which the colonial state imagined its dominion -- the nature of the human beings it rules, the geography of its domain, and the legitimacy of its ancestry." They articulated a legitimate history of colonized populations and justified colonial rule, often by "primitizing" colonized peoples. In doing so, museums and the stories constructed inside of them, Anderson argues, are "both profoundly political."

Anderson argues that maps, museums, and censuses grew in importance in colonial states throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All three instruments reinforced colonial power structures against forces that might undermine that power. Museums supplied the state with a space to create a suitable past for the diverse, emerging nationalities and suggested a sense of legitimacy to their rule. The census gave the state the power to systematically count and label its citizens. Maps, too, Anderson argues, were a means of total classification, by the colonial state. Maps and censuses, Anderson argues, worked together to demonstrate the geographical and political boundaries of the emerging nation. Anderson sees all three institutions as the state asserting its national identity and power in the face of challenges from the anti-colonial forces. He also sees a need by the state, as many Europeans were being born and raised in colonized nations - like Indonesia -- to construcluded themt an alternative history. The three, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, moved from assertions of conquest to incorporation and legitimization of the diverse citizenry into the colonizer's state.

Anderson says that post-colonial states inherited this type of politicized museuming. Anderson's analysis, however, does not detail the struggle over control of the legitimizing narratives in the museum, especially in the face of anti-colonial forces or diverse citizens. For instance, Anderson describes a series of paintings in Indonesian national history, commissioned by the Ministry of Education in the 1950s. In particular, Anderson argues that the representation of the Borobudur -- a well known ancient Javenese sculpture -- as white, without detail of the 504 Buddhas, indicates an inherited sense of the sculpture not as a religious or ethnic symbol, but as "state regalia." Anderson's analysis of the change in the representation of that sculpture is uncomplicated by a sense of either its reception or its cultural or political impact. There is a potential in Anderson's analysis for a discussion of the ways colonial and post-colonial populations struggled for power and legitimacy using symbols in the realms of politicized museuming.

The culture wars in the United States can be considered similar to these politicized struggles described by Anderson. For the purposes of this paper, discussion will be limited to the debate and controversy over the exhibit of the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in the early 1990s. The Enola Gay controversy shows the struggle of state power to maintain authority over the creation of legitimizing national stories in the face of contesting groups and a diverse population.

In the late 1980s, curators at the National Air and Space Museum began to develop plans for an exhibit to introduce visitors to issues surrounding the bombing of Hiroshima. They hoped to open the exhibit the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. The restored plane -- the Enola Gay -- sat in the heart of the exhibit plans. Drafts of the exhibit text enraged veterans' groups and military historians. The veterans felt that the exhibit questioned the actions taken at the time and ignored their expectations for thoughtful commemoration at the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Military historians from branches of the defense department took issue with the scholarship and suggested that it was politically motivated. Both the veterans and military historians hoped that the National Air and Space Museum, as a national museum, would reinforce the traditional national understanding of the story of the end of World War II. The controversy quickly became a politicized fight, leading ultimately to Congressional Hearings and the resignation of the director of the National Air and Space Museum. The Secretary of the Smithsonian canceled all plans for any exhibition of the Enola Gay after the American Legion pulled out of negotiations with National Air and Space Museum officials.

However, after the cancellation, veterans' groups and other called for the exhibition of the Enola Gay, exhibited in its proper context.. At this point, the Secretary ordered a scaled back exhibit, stripping away all information and artifacts which dealt with the results of the atomic bombing, concentrating instead on presenting the restored front forward fuselage of the Enola Gay. According to the Secretary's statement , the Smithsonian Institution was wrong to examine the results of the bombing during the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. In placing this statement at the entrance to the exhibit, the Secretary suggested that the National Air and Space Museum misjudged the needs and desires of its visitors. This statement is highly significant for it means that the state lost its power to ascribe National stories and historians, an issue not examined in Anderson's analysis. This statement also reflects a legitimization of those involved in the controversy who expected a national museum like National Air and Space Museum to support, memorialize, and commemorate American power and nationalism, not to question or critically examine that power and authority.

The second exhibit limited discussion of the evolution of different bomber classes and an in-depth look at the restoration process of the Enola Gay. At the entrance to the exhibit a video tape played testimony from the flight crew. As visitors entered the exhibit, they saw the propeller of the Enola Gay, mounted on the wall. Next to it, a discussion of the development of the B-29 bomber. Next, visitors entered a room with a video of the Smithsonian's restoration and a model of the Enola Gay's engine. Continuing through the exhibit, visitors turned a corner and were confronted with the gleaming front forward fuselage of the Enola Gay, similar to the famous picture taken with Paul Tibbets in the cockpit as the Enola Gay left for its bombing mission on Hiroshima. Visitors could walk around the plane -- examining it from all angles. The area above the bomb bay doors was cut away, allowing visitors to see the slightly opened doors. In front of the bomb bay was a replica of Fat Man. Visitors then could leave the exhibit, passing by a wall of newspapers announcing the bombing as well as the same video which played at the entrance.

As the Secretary's statement at the entrance of the exhibit explicitly stated, the Smithsonian and the National Air and Space Museum hoped to honor the achievements of the veterans of World War II and the mission of the Enola Gay in this new exhibit. The exhibit was also designed to showcase pride in a plane which many consider the savior of their lives. More importantly, a plane that Smithsonian spent a great deal of money restoring. Through an in-depth examination of the Smithsonian's restoration process, the museum also may have hoped to salvage pride and reputation in a national museum.

More than salvaging pride, showcasing the Smithsonian's restoration would begin to regain the museum's authority and legitimacy, seriously challenged by the controversy of its earlier exhibition. For instance, one comment repeatedly used to attack the Smithsonian, the curators of the original exhibit and the National Air and Space Museum, was the statement that the role of a national museum was to celebrate and memorialize, not to engender controversy through an examination of a difficult historical decision. Many of the veterans groups and military historians felt that by showing the results of the atomic bombing, and questioning the bomb's use, the Smithsonian Institution moved beyond the role of the a national museum. In the installment of the stripped back exhibit, the Smithsonian reinforced a traditional patriotic vision of American national identity. By giving in to audience outcry, the Smithsonian also brought the forces which attempt to undermine the power structures throughout these cultural wars, into the power structure of the museum. As Anderson points out, the museum was a place where colonial powers attempted to legitimate themselves. Although the Smithsonian did not necessarily allow outside interest groups to dictate the content of the second exhibit, their significant shift in focus and context clearly legitimized one of the multiple politicized viewpoints involved in the controversy.

Visitors to the Enola Gay exhibit saw the exhibit and responded to its explicit and implicit messages in several ways, expressing themselves at times in lengthy, emotional comment cards. The exhibit affirmed personal feelings of national power and authority. It also affronted some visitors. It often affronted their personal sense of what the American national story ought to consist of and the correct/proper role of a national museum in shaping that story. Finally, the exhibit left some visitors wondering at the expression of American nationalism and its consquence for America's international roles.

The exhibit affirmed personal connections of family, friends, and community by connecting them to the national story and a communal sense of American identity. For instance, comment cards with emotional personal connections often described the visitor's personal story within the context of the national story of the end of World War II. One visitor explained: "As a radar operator on a B-29 in the 9th Bomb Group I am glad that the original planned exhibit was revised. The number of causalities on both sides was reduced drastically as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima." Recent writers on museums emphasized the interactive and engaged visitor and have explored the desire for visitors to see themselves within the exhibit texts. Visitors to the Enola Gay epitomized both of the tendencies. One wrote: "I was impressed! Thank you for not portraying our veterans in a bad way! My grandfather served in the Pacific and without the Enola Gay he may never have come home!" This visitor links notions of the role of the National Air and Space Museum to his/her story and existence. Visitors interpreted the exhibit in context of their life. For instance, a graduate student in museum studies began her page long commentary: "As a graduate student in Museum Studies and the daughter and granddaughter of Army and Air Force Officers, I come to this exhibit with mixed emotions." Her experience in the revised exhibit was also complicated by the preceding public and political controversy. She continued: "It is unfortunate that the original script and planned exhibit could not have been developed in such a way that allowed these officers to speak, but also allowed for the context originally intended exhibit. I learned more about the War in the Pacific from your original script than anywhere else during my academic years. I think my grandfathers, who both served in the Pacific during World War II, would have wanted me to see all of the photos and read all of the texts. That, combined with this film would have spoken to me a young adult who has never truly experienced a "total" country war."

The exhibit also affirmed some of the visitors' nationalistic feelings of United States' supreme authority. One visitor wrote: "This is a very noble and dramatic way to portray the Hiroshima bombi ng. To display an exhibit in America which does not emphasize our patriotism and correctness to have done something like this is wrong and simply Un-American. This is the best way to exhibit the Enola Gay." Some of these comments were tied by the visitor into their knowledge of the controversy surrounding the exhibit. One visitor thought that the controversy over the exhibit, and the resulting exhibit would mar the memory of the role that the United States had played in ending World War II. "Don't degrade our country for doing this necessary thing!" Another stated: "A good exhibit, but very disappointed at the lack of American Patriotism." One visitor said: "I am glad to see that the Smithsonian has presented history accurately, not in retrospect as some wanted." Finally, another visitor wrote simply: "Made in American, Tested in Japan," suggesting perhaps that the event and plane exemplify the best of what it means to be American, crudely using the Buy American slogan. This comment uses late twenieth century images of competitiveness between Japan and the United States. It is an excellent example of a way that history is mobilized and used. These visitors engaged with the exhibit and museum on both a personal level which lead them to nationalistic feeling of pride and attachment. These visitors responded to implicit nationalistic sentiments connected to the Enola Gay and its perceived role in the end of World War II. They also responded to the exhibit and notions of national pride and identity that they felt were neglected or swept aside during the controversy over the original exhibition.

One of the most important things in the exhibit to encourage or support visitors' sense of the supreme national power of the United States was seeing the actual plane -- the Enola Gay. Anderson's work suggests that flags, songs, and other symbols are important in understanding why people become attached to nations. Many of the comments cards certainly support these conclusions. Visitors connected their feelings of national pride to the Enola Gay. The Enola Gay carried two opposing messages, dependent on the personal experience of the visitor. The Enola Gay stood, for many of these visitors, as a pre-eminent symbol of American power. It also stood as a savior in ending World War II. The Enola Gay also stands as an ultimate symbol of destruction, especially symbolic to some as the ultimate power of destruction and United States' continued aggressive international behavior. For example, one visitor responded: "Your exhibit and the 6 minute tape makes viewer consider the Enola Gay as a sacred artifact completely disregarding that it was a horrific machine of human destruction. Shame on you for caving into the reshaping of American history."

The physical presence of the Enola Gay engaged many visitors in these perception as well. For some, the way the Smithsonian exhibited the Enola Gay was directly related to its messages or reinforcement of a national story. For instance, only the front forward fuselage of the Enola Gay was on exhibit. Perhaps the most commented on part of the exhibit was this dismantling of an American symbol. "Wish the total plane could have been preserved, as well as other WW2 planes, so future generations could see them. Hopefully the WW2 will be the last of the big wars. Realize there will always be wars of some type, unfortunately." This visitor hopes to use the Enola Gay as a symbol of the devastation of war to future generations -- to teach and educate those about America's history. Other comments were similar to the following: "Nice display, but the Enola Gay deserved to be fully restored on one piece. If the Smithsonian is too small, the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson might be able to make room beside BOCKSCAR." Another visitor wrote: "I loved it! Why isn't the Enola Gay up front -- in a position of Honor?" For this visitor, a position of honor -- perhaps at the entrance of the exhibit -- would position the plane more central in the exhibit, emphasizing pride in its mission and consequently, national authority.

For some visitors, the messages stated and implied by the museum exhibit slighted their personal sense of nationalism and American identity. Many of these kind of comments hotly debated the notion of what it meant to an American, the truth of the past, and the National Air and Space Museum's role in representing those two ideas. The reason the two are tied together, is because in many of these comments the idealized true past determined the visitor's idea of an American identity -- what it meant to them, personally, to be an American. Intriguingly, the visitor's own experience personally verified the truth of the past. The visitor's personal sense of American national identity was dependent on their personalization of the museum exhibit experience by the visitor. For example, one visitor wrote: ""I believe the Smithsonian Museum has a responsibility to accurately report and exhibit events the way they happened. There is no place for subjective opinions of the curators of this museum -- there should be no issue with respect to the harshness of the effects of the bomb because this country was in a state of war." Another felt just the opposite, in terms of the appropriate truth for Enola Gay exhibition. "I remain appalled by the decision to "rewrite history" and remove almost all mention of the thousands of people killed by this plane. One of the purposes of a museum surely should be to present the whole truth, or as much of it as is possible, rather than caving into the interests of groups that do not represent t he entire population of the country. After all, this is supposed to be a national museum."

The comment cards often discussed the responsibility of a national museum to educate its citizens. These comments were concerned especially with the museum's responsibility to educate those people who were not first hand witnesses to history. Many comment cards hoped that the young people would benefit from hearing the veterans' experiences. For example, one visitor wrote: "People today know what Atomic weapons can do -- but not what brings a country to all out war and the focused goal to end it -- to second guess the efforts of so many 40 years ago would have been a great disservice to them." At times, younger people agreed. One visitor wrote: "Excellent exhibit. Although I am only 27 and did not live through the war, it really angers me when my generation says we shouldn't' have dropped the bomb because they can't relate to what is was like. I salute all the veterans that served in that war."

Strongly connected to these notions was the comment cards that suggested that a national museum, like the National Air and Space Museum, was to show what it means to be American. Anderson suggests museums reinforce inculcation of values received elsewhere -- like in churches, schools and other community activies. Many of the comment cards had a distinct notion of the American past and national identity. They often thought that the role of the National Air and Space Museum ought to reinforce and idealize those conceptions. However, this reinforcement was dependant on their personal definition of American nationalism. As Anderson maintains, museums can and do serve state-building goals. A critical one is that of imparting of national sentiments. These comment cards complicate Anderson's assertion by showing that the teaching is more of a collaborative process, shaped by the state's needs and the citizens' needs. For instance, one visitor commented: "The emotional and psychological impact this exhibit could have had, has been rendered impotent in the face of zealous vets and partisan concerns." This visitor responds in part to the story told, and in part to the possibilities that the National Air and Space Museum had in the earlier exhibit plans. In a way, the visitor both engaged with and rejected the state-building goals of the exhibit in favor of the previous messages, which connected more with his sense of nationalism. He continued, stating: "I laud, however, the Smithsonian's original efforts to infuse a sense of compassion, realism, and truth into the planned exhibition. It is saddening that this planned exhibition [the original one] could not come to be. ... I am no revisionist but I do believe the sort of patriotic trash that blinds people to the point of ignorant nationalistic devotion has swung America's convoluted sense of self too far. It's time to swing the pendulum the other way towards a more comprehensive, thorough, and courageous understanding of history and actions. It is a movement which will have its roots in sensitivity, compassion, and faith and an undeniable adherence to the truth." A graduate student in Museums Studies questioned the possibility that a national museum could both educate and instill notions of American national identity. She wrote: "I sympathize with your position here at the National Air and Space Museum. As a national museum do you celebrate our 'glorious national past' or educate objectively and provoke thought? I wish you could educate and provoke thought."

Finally, some visitors were left wondering at the expressions of American nationalism. Theorists on emerging nationalism in nation-states suggest that international status is key in forming a national identity. International relations give status and recognition to a nation. International relations also provide points of comparison. They allow the emerging nation to identity unique characteristics of itself. Many visitors expressed concern at the messages implied in the exhibit and controversy -- both by what was exhibited and what was not. One visitor wrote: "I notice you very discretely forgot to place photographs of decomposed, excruciatingly radiated, tortured Japanese women and children." Many asked what would Japanese citizens think, seeing what seemed to many an outrageous expression of American pride in such a sobering act. For example, one children wrote: " I think that wasn't a nice thing to put up, you should reuck it. There are a lot of people from Japan here!" Another child wrote: I think that this place is nice but I hate that the USA droped a bomb on Japan Just think of all the animals that died the people the house's Just think what if Japan droped a bomb on us?"

Many citizens from other countries commented on the expressions of American nationalism. For instance, one woman wrote: "I don't know what, how I should say, because I'm Japanese. I want you to keep in mind that the atomic bomb killed a lot of people. To end the war is very important, but I hate to kill people in any means. We should not kill people." In fact, a visitor from Greece picked up on the nationalistic sentiments of the exhibit and wrote: "Only the American can feel proud of this. The rest of the world -- NO"

Anderson is right on -- museums, especially state-funded and as publicly concerned as the Smithsonian -- do serve some nation building goals. No where is this more clear than in the intense struggle to control the story told about the Enola Gay. Yet, it is clear that examining people's responses to that story -- and struggle to tell the story -- complicates Anderson's analysis. Although there has always been a lack of concensus among Americans about their perception of national identity, the comment cards suggest that these issues have been pulled to the forefront. The Enola Gay controversy highlights the fact that Americans are no longer as united in their perceptions of what it means to be a citizen of this nation These debates (or culture wars) have become more public, vocal, and political. The controversy over the exhibition and some of the comment cards suggest that the Americans are no longer as willing allow the state to create that meaning, and from the evidence presented in this paper, it is unclear if the process was as ever as clear-cut as Anderson's analysis suggested. Yet those responses are shaped by the institution where the collaborative conversations about nationalism occurred -- the museum. As one visitor points out: "Who ever thought of restoring the Enola gay and using it as a focal point of an exhibit for people to ponder the meaning and power of the atom bomb truly understands the role that museum exhibits play in our lives. It was a moving and thought-provoking exhibit."

---

Works Cited


Ames, Kenneth L., Barbara Franco, L. Thomas, eds. Ideas and Images: Developing Interpretive History Exhibits. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1992.
Antze, Paul & Michael Lambek, eds. Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum: history, theory, politics. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Blatti, Jo ed. Past Meets Present: Essays about Historic Interpretation and Public Audiences. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987.
Bodnar, John. Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the 20th Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Butler, Thomas, eds. Memory: History, Culture and the Mind. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989.
Center for Museum Studies, Smithsonian Institution. Museums for the New Millennium. Washington DC: American Association of Museums, 1996.
Chidester, David & Edward T. Linenthal, eds. American Sacred Space. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Corse, Sarah M. Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Dijkink, Gertjan. National Identity and Geopolitical Visions: Maps of Pride and Pain. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Dornfeld, Barry. Producing Public Television, Producing Public Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Duncan, Carol. Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Enola Gay Exhibition Papers. Curatorial Files. National Air and Space Museum Archives, Washington DC.
Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. The Museum Experience. Washington DC: Whalesback Books, 1992.
Franklin, H. Bruce. MIA or Mythmaking in America: How and Why Belief in Live POWs has Possessed a Nation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Friedlander, Saul. Memory, History, and the Extermination of the Jews of Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Friedlander, Saul ed. Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the "Final Solution." Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Furet, Francois, ed. Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews. New York: Schocken Books, 1989.
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Gillis, John R., eds. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Glassberg, David. American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early 20th Century. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
Greenfeld, Liah. Nationalism: Five Roads to modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Haas, Ernst B. Nationalism, Liberalism and Progress, Volume I: The Rise and Decline of Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Hagopian, Patrick. "The Social Memory of the Vietnam War." Ph.D. diss, The Johns Hopkins University, 1994.
Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Handler, Richard & Eric Gable. The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.
Hartman, Geoffrey H, ed. Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1994--
. The Longest Shadow: In the Aftermath of the Holocaust. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Hastings, Adrian. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Herman, Judith Lewis. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books, 1990.
Henderson, Amy & Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Exhibiting Dilemmas: Issues of Representation at the Smithsonian. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
Hobsbawm, Eric & Terence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Hobsbawm, E.J. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Irwin-Zarecka, Iwona. Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
Jacobs, William. Interview with author. Washington DC, March 1, 1996.
Kammen, Michael. Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1991.
Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer, & Steven D. Lavine. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992.
Karp, Ivan and Steven D. Lavine. Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington DC: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
Kuchler, Susanna & Walter Melion. Images of Memory: On Remembering and Representation. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
LeGoff, Jacques. History and Memory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
Linenthal, Edward T. & Tom Engelhardt, eds. History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996.
Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
Maier, Charles S. The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Middleton, David and Derek Edwards, eds. Collective Remembering. London: Sage Publications, 1990.
Pearce, Susan M. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study. Washington: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.
Pennebaker, James W., Dario Paez & Bernard Rime, eds. Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1997.
Roberts, Lisa C. From Knowledge to Narrative: Educators and the Changing Museum. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
Schlereth, Thomas J. Cultural History & Material Culture: Everyday Life, Landscapes, Museums. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990.
Sherman, Daniel J. and Irit Rogoff, eds. Museum Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
Smithsonian Institution Archives. Accession No. 96-036. Box No. 1-6.
Spillman, Lyn. Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Sturken, Marita. Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Susman, Warren I. Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceasusescu's Romania. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Wallace, Mike. Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.
Weil, Stephen E. Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.
Zelizer, Barbie. Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the Shaping of Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.