Reviews for The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age

The average rating for The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-11-08 00:00:00 Robert Gottlicher This is a marvelous book filled with wisdom and insight about the ways in which people collect, preserve, maintain, repair, and restore. Instead of empty platitudes about the importance of restoration and preservation, Mansfield instead provides rich anthropological accounts of people in the depth of particular practices of restoration and preservation (i.e. civil war re-enactors, antique auctioneers, Old Home Day celebrations, and audio nerds collecting snippets of silence). Alongside the quotations and descriptions of people and practices, Mansfield also provides subtle and often acute commentary about the dynamics of restoration and renewal in this modern world. The result is a series of meditations that displays a thoughtful cohesiveness. I would recommend this book to a wide audience, and to anyone that enjoys reflecting on the peculiarity and ingenuity of people and groups in trying to maintain active connections with the past.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-08-02 00:00:00 Guy Barlow From the inside flap: "An old farmer boasts that he has used the same ax his whole life -- he's only had to replace the handle three times and the head twice. In an eclectic, insightful meditation on the powerful impulse to preserve and restore, Howard Mansfield explores the myriad ways in which we attempt to reconnect with and recover the past -- to use the same ax twice." The perfect choice for a book club made up of preservationists, Mansfield touches on all those wonderfully debatable issues about authenticity, the power and/or meaning of history in the modern world, interpretation, how preservation fits within discussions of urban planning and sustainability, our need for touchstones of what is "real" and how the world seems to be losing those touchstones.