The New Town Square: Museums and Communities in Transition

Bob Archibald has the ability to put into words the feelings, inclinations, fears, and joys about community that so many of us share but cannot express. In The New Town Square his examples of those expressions make me actually ‘see’ the issues from an entirely different perspective. — Terry Davis, president and CEO, AASLH

This is an elegantly written book with a clear theme. American who have grown up in the suburbs may reject Archibald’s characterization of their neighborhoods as identical and stifling places that lack a sense of community. However, Archibald raises important points about the evolving nature of American society and about the place of history amid rapid change, and readers will benefit from this thought-provoking volume. ― History: Reviews Of New Books

In this compassionate masterpiece of reflection and clear writing, Bob Archibald offers thoughtful insights into the past, our sense of place and identification, the ways in which we think about our environment and about wilderness, as ways to deal well with the present and the future. His book is an inspiration, a call to recognize that there is more to civilization than individual consumption, and an invitation to join in rebuilding the values on which our lives are ultimately based, in order to live dignified lives worthy of the privileges we enjoy. It must be a source of inspiration to any thoughtful person. — Peter H. Raven, Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University, St. Louis, and director, Missouri Botanical Garden

This is a good book, most of all, because it relates one man’s varied involvements in his community and profession as object lessons for peers and career aspirants. For Archibald, museums and historical agencies are not places in which historians and curators are to sequester themselves―as was once accepted and expected―like monks in a monastery. Rather, they must be at the center of their communities, as members of a profession who both hold and tell the stories that articulate and sustain their fellow citizens’ identity. It is an awesome responsibility, for which Archibald has been a most outspoken, ardent, and eloquent advocate. . . The concluding chapter, “Under Construction,” ought to be required reading for every historical society and museum staff and board member in the country. ― Oregon Historical Quarterly

In many ways, these essays constitute a call to arms for public historians. Archibald seeks to embolden his professional colleagues in the power and importance of what they do, and The New Town Square is a work likely to be of considerable interest and utility to cultural resource managers. For historic preservationists, museum curators, re-enactors, public programmers, park rangers, and interpreters, it offers a model for examining the impact of the environment on how communities came to define themselves. . . These essays will benefit anyone seeking to write about a favorite locale, or hoping to develop exhibitions or programs that convey the virtues of a particular site. ― Crm: The Journal Of Heritage Stewardship

The New Town Square provides another timely reminder of the necessity of collaboration between community groups. ― Museums Australia Magazine

The essays are nicely packaged and, when read individually, thought-provoking. The New Town Square provides the reader with insightful questions to consider, and encourages the contemplation of one’s own place, and the rold of museums and historic preservation in community. ― Muse

the book offers informative and entertaining vignettes that convey at once the author’s personality and a sense of of the distinctiveness of the sites he has inhabited, turning the book itself into a crossroads of America, a new and exciting town square. ― Indiana Magazine History, March 2008