Time and Again in Gettysburg: Restaging America and its Civil Wars Today

This book is about how the conflicts of the past inform the conflicts of the present in USA today. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted since 2010 around Gettysburg, an iconic battlefield of the American Civil War and nowadays a key node in an extensive heritage tourism network. The book argues that an in-depth study of this place, its people and its tensions can serve as a unique window for understanding the struggles enveloping the American nation today. It suggests that to do so, we must pay particular heed to the human management and experience of time -- of how materials and emotions from the past are appropriated and recycled in the present -- as a key element in the ongoing shaping of heritage and identity.