Educational Media Reviews Online

With the plans for the September 11th memorial almost complete, and the new World War II Memorial in Washington, D. C., dedicated recently, Americans have been thinking about memorials and what they mean to the nation. This documentary is both timely and useful. Public Memory invites us to consider our past memorials and their importance to our public life.

Through a series of interviews with Dr. James Young, one of the jurors of the 9/11 memorial design, Dr. Keneth Foote, author of Shadowed Ground: America's Landscape of Tragedy and Violence, and Dr. Edward T. Linenthal, author of The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory, and others, the way Americans think about memorials is discussed. Why do some memorials move us? Why are they important? What do they mean to us? Also, the question of why the public needs to remember events that are memorialized is central to the discussion.

This program provides an important discussion of memorials in American life, and is useful both for instruction and for leading discussions on the topic. The production values are excellent, and the discussion is clear and well presented. The program would be especially valuable for teaching high school students the importance of our civic memory, and reviewing our thoughts on some of the most important events in our past. Some of the topics may be too intense for younger viewers.

Highly recommended.