From the sculptured peaks of Mount Rushmore to the Coloradan prairie lands at Sand Creek to the idyllic islands of the Pacific, the West’s signature environments add a new dimension to the study of memorials. In such diverse and often dramatic landscapes, how do the natural and built environments shape our emotions? In Memorials Matter, Jennifer Ladino investigates the physical environments of seven diverse National Park Service (NPS) sites in the American West and how they influence emotions about historical conflict and national identity. Chapters feature the region’s diverse inhabitants (Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Native Americans) and the variously traumatic histories these groups endured—histories of oppression, exploitation, incarceration, slavery, and genocide. Drawing on material ecocritical theory, Ladino emphasizes how memorials evoke visceral responses that are not always explicitly “storied,” but nevertheless matter in powerful ways. The book develops several new theoretical terms that help articulate those visceral responses, including “affective agency”–a complement to what ecocritics have called “narrative agency”–and “affective dissonance,” a counterpart to the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance.