When we were preparing for the series, we read through lots of books and materials, to dive into the Rocky story and monuments. Here are a few we refer to in the series and/or who guided our process:

• Laura M. Holzman, Contested Image: Defining Philadelphia for the Twenty-First Century
• Chris Holmund, The Ultimate Stallone Reader
• Lewis Hyde, A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past
• Mark Kram Jr., Smoking’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier
• Monument Lab, The National Monument Audit
• Kirk Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape
• Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
• Sylvester Stallone, The Official Rocky Scrapbook
• Salamishah Tillet, Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Imagination
• Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
• Alex von Tunzelmann, Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
• Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish, Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps