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Between the sixth and twentieth centuries, the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino (est. 529) experienced a cycle of atrocities which forever transformed its identity. This book examines how such a tumultuous history has been constructed, remembered, and represented from the Middle Ages to the present day. It uses this singular and pivotal case to analyse the historical process of remembering and its impact on modern representations of the past. Exactly how Monte Cassino is remembered is distinctive and diagnostic. The abbey is recognizable today as a beacon of western civilization, culture, and learning precisely because of its 'destruction tradition' over fourteen centuries.
The Destruction and Recovery of Monte Cassino, 529.1964 asks how the abbey's fragmented past has been ideologically, politically, and culturally constituted and preserved; how its experience with destruction and suffering, and recovery and rebirth, has become incorporated into a modern narrative of progress and triumph.
List of contents
Acknowledgements, Abbreviations, List of Illustrations, Prologue: The Oak Tree, Part I: Animus and Anchor, Chapter 1 - An Enigma: The Legend of Saint Benedict, Chapter 2 - The 'Citadel of Campania': Growth and Prosperity, Part II: Rise and Fall, Chapter 3 - A Destiny Repeated: Episodes of Destruction, Chapter 4 -
Floreat Semper: Rebuilding, Stone by Stone, Part III: Preservation and Valorization, Chapter 5 - The People's Patrimony: Defining Historical Value, Chapter 6 - A New Europe: Erasing the Destruction,Epilogue: Lighthouse, Index.
About the author
Kriston R. Rennie is Dean, Faculty of Indigenous Studies, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Northern British Columbia.
