In 1957, Congress established the United States Civil War Centennial Commission, charged with oversight of the commemoration for the defining experience in the nation’s history.  Many hoped that formal activities would bolster patriotism at the height of the Cold War as well as increase tourism in the South.  Nevertheless, the patriotic pageant organizers envisioned transformed into a struggle over the memory of the Civil War and the injustices of racism.  In Troubled Commemoration, Robert J. Cook masterfully depicts the episode as a window into the political, social, and cultural conflicts of America in the 1960s and the development of the modern South.