Join the Library and Solid State Books for a conversation with Matthew Davis\, author of A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of M ount Rushmore. In conversation with poet and writer Clint Smith\, Davi s will discuss Davis's new comprehensive narrative history of Mt. Rushmore .
\nCopies of the book will be available for sale and signing from S olid State. \;
\nABOUT THE BOOK
A comprehe
nsive narrative history of Mt. Rushmore\, written in light of recent polit
ical controversies\, and a timely retrospective for the monument's 100th a
nniversary in 2025.
&ldquo\;Well\, most people want to come to a nat
ional park and leave with that warm\, fuzzy feeling with an ice cream cone
. Rushmore can&rsquo\;t do that if you do it the right way. If you do it t
he right way people are going to be leaving pissed.&rdquo\; Gerard Baker\,
the first Native American superintendent of Mt. Rushmore\, shared those w
ords with author Matthew Davis. From the tragic history of Wounded Knee an
d the horrors of Indian Boarding Schools\, to the Land Back movement of to
day\, Davis traces the Native American story of Mt. Rushmore alongside the
narrative of the growing territory and state of South Dakota\, and the ec
onomic and political forces that shaped the reasons for the Memorial's cre
ation. A Biography of A Mountain \;combines history with reportage\, b
ringing the complicated and nuanced story of Mt. Rushmore to life\, from t
he land&rsquo\;s origins as sacred tribal ground\; to the expansion of the
American West\; to the larger-than-life personality of Gutzon Borglum\, t
he artist who carved the presidential faces into the mountain\; and up to
the politicized present-day conflict over the site and its future. Explori
ng issues related to how we memorialize American history\, Davis tells an
imperative story for our time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND CONVER
SATION PARTNER
Matthew Davis is the author
of \;When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter&rsquo\;s Tale. His work
has appeared in the \;New Yorker\, The Atlantic\, The Los Angeles Revi
ew of Books \;and \;Guernica\, among other places. He has been an
Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America\, a Fellow at the Black Mount
ain Institute at UNLV\, and a Fulbright Fellow to Syria and Jordan. He hol
ds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and an MA in I
nternational Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Internati
onal Studies. Davis lives in Washington\, D.C. with his wife\, a diplomat\
, and their two young kids.
Clint Smith is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America\, winner of the National Book C ritics Circle Award for Nonfiction\, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism \, the Stowe Prize\, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize\, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of two books of poetry\, the New York Times bestselling collection Above Ground as well as Counting Descent. Both poetry collections were winners o f the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the Ame rican Library Association and both were finalists for NAACP Image Awards. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
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