Monumental Fury

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Recent years in America have seen Confederate monuments toppled, statues of colonizers vandalized, and public icons commemorating figures from a history of exploitation demolished. Some were alarmed by the destruction, claiming that pulling down public statues is a negation of an entire cultural heritage. For others, statue-smashing is justified vandalism against a legacy of injustice. Monumental Folly confronts the long-neglected questions of our relationship with statues, icons, and monuments in public spaces, providing a rich historical perspective on iconoclastic violence. Organized according to specific themes that provide insights into the erection and destruction of statues — from religion, war, and revolution to colonialism, ideology, art, and social justice — author Matthew Fraser examines the implications of our monuments from the Buddhas of Bamiyan to those of Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Vladimir Lenin, and many more. Above all, the book endeavors to frame moments of statue-toppling throughout history so we can better understand the eruptions of iconoclastic violence that we are witnessing today. Statues are erected as expressions of power, and th

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