Digging Up the Dead

With "Digging Up the Dead," Pulitzer PrizeOCowinning historian Michael Kammen reveals a treasure trove of fascinating, surprising, and occasionally gruesome stories of exhumation and reburial throughout American history. Taking us to the contested grave sites of such figures as Sitting Bull, John Paul Jones, Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Boone, Jefferson Davis, and even Abraham Lincoln, Kammen explores how complicated interactions of regional pride, shifting reputations, and evolving burial practices led to public and often emotional battles over the final resting places of famous figures. Grave-robbing, skull-fondling, cases of mistaken identity, and the financial lures of cemetery tourism all come into play as Kammen delves deeply into this little-knownOCoyet surprisingly persistentOCoaspect of American history.aSimultaneously insightful and interesting, masterly and macabre, "Digging Up the Dead" reminds us that the stories of American history donOCOt always end when the key players pass on. Rather, the battleOCoover reputations, interpretations, and, last but far from least, possession of the remains themselvesOCois often just beginning.