This book is a phenomenological investigation of the interrelations of tradition memory place and the body. Drawing upon philosophers such as Husserl Heidegger MerleauPonty Gadamer and Ricoeur Janet Donohoe uses the idea of a palimpsest to argue that layers of the past are carried along as traditions through places and bodies such that we can speak of memory as being written upon place and place as being written upon memory. She engages in ongoing discussions about the importance of place in dialogue with theorists such as Jeff Malpas and Ed Casey and focuses on analysis of monuments and memorials to investigate how such deliberate places of collective memory can be ideological or can open us to the past and traditions in our experiences of them.