Young's "Road Trips through History"

The author, who himself is Senior Communication Associate in the National Trust, have composed a brilliant set of short essays on various famous and not-so places around the world. There are history of bookstores, art museums, maritime memorabilia collection, the World Expo of 1893 and the like. It presents a rainbow of stories from the point of view of an sharp-eyed professional, spending descent time to travel around and note what each of us is passing by in our everyday routine.
Why do we need to preserve battlefields? What do the movie theaters at the open bring us? Is there a message in a sculpture? In a monument? Or a prison? Being a bit nostalgic of the “ol’ good days,” the author’s writing looks like a travel notebook, a diary, embracing so many notorious places,which are embraced under umbrella of historic preservation. But what about people, who makes these memorable landmarks to continue their existence? After all, this is not about buildings, old market places or stylistically constructed churches. There is also everyday’s work, usually unseen to a naked eye – a work of historians, museum curator’s and countless volunteers. Definitely, Ms. Cunningham was an extraordinary figure undertaking an extraordinary task. But from the other hand, the Russian ethnography museum, an island of Kizhi, which Young so admired – has a staff of nearly 200 people, who do exist on the very low pay and mostly on their own enthusiasm preserving this unique architectural treasure. The same goes for Manzanar site and several others. Unless I overlooked, there is practically nothing on Native Americans or Amish, who managed to preserve their historical heritage over the centuries despite competitive modernization.
The author tries to bring a significance to big and small pieces of history,which were touched by the winged time. The major point he is making, I think, is that we can’t substitute the real history with the surrogates of Las Vegas or Disney World, no mater how colorful and almost “look alike” they are. Young is absolutely right that “preservation is all about having the good sense to hang on to things that are meaningful and enduring,” (p. 9). But it is also about human’s memory and a place each of us occupies today. And to prove his theory on ”no place fast” we have to slow down a bit and look around – that’s for sure.
From the other point of view – what I specifically liked about this book, it that Young serves as an admirable example of how a public historian could bring his/her ideas to the general audience in a simple and, at the same token, penetrating manner.