Curating the American Past

Takes readers behind the Staff Only door at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to reveal how curators collect objects, plan exhibits, and bring alive complex and exciting history. In vivid detail, Pete Daniel recounts the exhilaration of innovative research, the joys of collaboration, and the rewards of mentoring new generations.

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In Curating the American Past, Pete Daniel takes readers behind the Staff Only door at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to reveal how curators collect objects, plan exhibits, and bring alive the country’s complex and exciting history. In vivid detail, Daniel recounts the exhilaration of innovative research, the joys of collaboration, and the rewards of mentoring new generations of historians. In a career distinguished by prize-winning publications and pathbreaking exhibitions, Daniel also confronted the challenges of serving as a public historian tasked with protecting a definitive American museum from the erosion of scholarly standards. Curating the American Past offers a wealth of museum wisdom, illuminating the crucial role that dedicated historians and curators serve within our most important repositories of cultural memory.