Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey PlazaStephenFagin. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.

Abstract

Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Stephen Fagin. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.In his 1986 book America, Jean Baudrillard wrote the following about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy: It is the of Kennedy's murder which radiates out over present-day America (95). Baudrillard's insight into the heroic image and violent death of Kennedy, even though it was written almost thirty years ago, still resonates soundly with many Americans, regardless of generation. This interest in the Kennedy assassination is evidenced, in part, by the large number of books published to mark the fiftieth anniversary during November 2013. The sheer number of books on the assassination suggests that Baudrillard's energy still radiates across the American cultural landscape.In Stephen Fagin's Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, the author provides a fascinating account of the history and the planning of The Sixth Floor Museum in the former Texas School Book Depository. Whereas other books have focused largely on the historical events of the assassination, on various conspiracy theories, or on the impact the shooting had on American life, Fagin's book explores not just what we remember but how we remember and commemorate the site of one of America's most tragic events. In his meticulously researched account of the museum's history, Fagin, the museum's Associate Curator and Oral Historian, has produced a highly readable account of the difficult road civic planners traveled to transform the former school book depository into a museum of remembrance and reflection and the subsequent impact the museum has had on how visitors and others remember, learn about, and reflect upon the events of November 1963. In telling this story, Fagin also relates how the city of Dallas itself used the building of the museum to help heal its own wounds by transforming, arguably the most shameful monument of its history, into an internationally recognized museum. As such, Fagin's book is an important history of not only one of American history and culture's most iconic sites of tragedy, but it is also an important comment on how we remember and commemorate such sites.The author begins by placing the museum in the context of other infamous sites from American history: Ford's Theater, the Alfred P. Mur rah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the World Trade Center, among others. …