| This dissertation addresses two historical problems. The first, how to describe the past's place in American public life, has occupied scholars since the 1950s. A variety of ways of thinking about this problem has emerged. Some have investigated the place of myth in the American mind, others the role of tradition in American life, others the interaction of history and memory, or history and heritage. This dissertation moves this question in new directions. It applies it to the contemporary United States, it considers how a hero, Martin Luther King, Jr., and a villian, Joseph R. McCarthy, have been commemorated, and it focuses not just on history produced by historians, but on that emanating from journalists and people in McCarthy and King's hometown as well. The dissertation's core is six case studies of commemoration, three each on McCarthy and King. These case studies attempt to find a way to talk about the creation of history in contemporary America.;The second historical problem under consideration here is the quality of public discourse about history in American public life. There is a widespread apprehension that most history produced in the United States today is bad history, both inaccurate and politically biased. The dissertation, using the same six case studies, seeks to evaluate the quality of history produced in America in the last forty years and explain why it has the flaws that it does.;The dissertation makes several contributions to our understanding of history's place in American public life. First, it provides original studies of the commemoration of Joseph McCarthy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in their hometowns and in the national press, and significantly revises those scholarly studies that now exist. Second, it finds that none of the models currently used by scholars fully describe the past's place in contemporary American life. Third, it suggests a new model, based on commemorative styles, to describe the production of history in modern America. Fourth, it concludes that the way these styles are used, not political bias, accounts for the quality of history in American public life. |
