Remembering War The American Way Summary

Kurt Piehler’s Remembering War the American Way is an informative book that shows what has happened in American society, how important representative government is, and shows how regular citizens can influence public affairs. Throughout the text, Piehler gives a complete history of how American’s have gone about remembering certain conflicts when it comes to wars, or even certain battles. The main things to be covered in this paper will include the main themes, how Americans have remembered the past and how memorialization of wars evolved, different groups influencing the memory of past events, and what the book teaches citizens about their roles and duties. The first thing to cover is the main themes of Remembering War the American Way The

Starting with the Federalist and the Democratic Republicans, these two groups faced off for what they thought was important for Americans to remember and how they should celebrate these events or people. A big thing they faced off with was how certain monuments are used when remembering history, the Federalist believed it should too much resemblance to imperial rule instead of a republic (pg.22). In a different belief, the Democratic Republicans believed they did not need to worry about public opinion shifting into thinking the Government will become an imperial rule. Another big group that faced off were the North and South during the Civil war area. The two war torn areas of the United States had very opposite ways in remembering what happened during the war. After the war, considering the North had beat the South, the North did not believe that graves of Southern soldiers should be represented by the government due to the cause the South believed in, which essentially was keeping slavery legal. Eventually both sides put up memorials funded mostly by rich political groups in their areas, and both made traditions that honored their dead. Groups throughout history did collide quite often and that is naturally because human beings strive for some sort of conflict. These groups were successful in shaping the memory of the past, but to a certain

Previously stated in the last paragraph, there were many groups that went head on with each other to bring upon change. These groups are a large indication of how taking part in government affairs can lead to citizens voices being heard and creating change from actively participating. Piehler’s main goal was to show that citizens could bring about change without having to be a government official. Being an actively participating citizen is every Americans civil duty to make sure the citizen’s rights are protected and not tarnished. This book also teaches citizens that remembering past wars and preserving the memory of those wars is a priority not only to honor the dead, but to teach future American Citizen’s on how the United States can better it self from these past