Road Trips through History Review

Don't forget...

Dwight Young's Road Trips through History offer a clever, often humorous, but always candid look at historic preservation. While his views sometimes borderline sensationalism, most, if not all, of his essays seem to perpetuate the idea that something is going horribly wrong with preserving our past. From second-hand books to the Slow Food movement, Young's collection takes the reader on a journey of often nostalgic moments, embellishing on drive-in movie theaters of old and looking forward with worry towards the architectural future of "glass boxes" (p 33).

But there are victories. Five-hundred drive-ins still remain, for example. The glorious churches in Kizhi, Russia still reach toward the sky. New Mexico legislature passed, with surprising success, the Night Sky Protection Act to prevent glaring lights from dominating the sky and thus drowning out the stars above. There is Polk County with its "deserved" Court House and some random home on a country rode with a sign proudly proclaiming "God Bless America" in reaction to September 11.

Still, what is perhaps more important is the more trying times. Washington's President Monroe faded into obscurity. So to did one of its musical landmarks as the "wrecking-ball silence[d] the melody" (p 11). The cruise ship Ile de France become a destroyed movie prop. And of course, Europe is being reconstructed in Las Vegas.

Young's attachment to historic preservation is clearly emotional and heartfelt. He reminisces over a Civil War battlefield the same way he does over a lost sock. With an eclectic array of subject matter, it becomes obvious that Young simply tries to remind his readers to soak in one's surroundings. Indeed, in a world that moves at breakneck speed, it is easy to forget why this building is important or why that battlefield shouldn't be converted into a theme park. Therein lies the importance of historic preservation. Indeed, a historian's job is nothing else if not to help the world to slow down and just remember.