The American Monument was published to coincide with the United States Bicentennial. When looking through his contact sheets, Friedlander noticed that a large number of public statues, memorials, plaques and reliefs had made their way into his photographs; after that, he began seeking them out. While some monuments in these photographs have become tourist attractions, most are overlooked and often abandoned. Leslie George Katz, founder of Eakins Press, writes in his afterword that monuments are 'metaphors for human values, persistent values that survive despite notice or neglect.' Friedlander's photographs show the modern world encroaching.

First edition; oblong folio (291 x 418 mm, 11½ x 16½ in); black-and-white photographs printed in gravure, epigraph by Walt Whitman, afterword by Leslie George Katz; green cloth-covered boards bound with three screws, titles stamped to spine and upper side in black, publisher's device in gold to spine, upper side ruled in gold, a fine copy; [176]pp.

The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century pp236-7; The Open Book pp310-1; The Photobook: A History Il, p28.