Why Controlling the Historical Narrative Matters: A Jamesian Response

An examination of the lessons learned from William James’s oration on the dedication of the Civil War Monument memorialization Colonel Robert Shaw and the Fifty-Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Infantry, an all-Black unit. The role of monuments in making visible the values of a society is explored in the context of promoting a nation’s historical narrative, in particular in their propagation of the South’s Lost Cause narrative. The genocidal violence against Armenians in the Caucasus by the Azerbaijani regime serves as the second illustration of the abuse of historical narratives. © 2022 Central European Pragmatist Forum. All rights reserved.