Do statues serve history?
The English historian Simon Schama is not a leftist. Here is what he has to say in a non-leftist paper:
"Statues are not history; rather, its opposite. History is argument; statues brook none. The whole honour of history lies in its contrarian irrepressibility; its brief to puncture the pieties of power, should they belie the truth. Those horrified by the de-pedestalisations of recent days — the Black Lives Matter protests have led to the felling of statues from the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol to the brutal colonialist Leopold II in Belgian cities — claim that such acts “erase” history. But the contrary is true. It is more usually statues, lording it over civic space, which shut off debate through their invitation to reverence."
History is better served by putting Men in Stone in museums
Related
Churchill's statue may have to be put in a museum. I hope so!
The English historian Simon Schama is not a leftist. Here is what he has to say in a non-leftist paper:
"Statues are not history; rather, its opposite. History is argument; statues brook none. The whole honour of history lies in its contrarian irrepressibility; its brief to puncture the pieties of power, should they belie the truth. Those horrified by the de-pedestalisations of recent days — the Black Lives Matter protests have led to the felling of statues from the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol to the brutal colonialist Leopold II in Belgian cities — claim that such acts “erase” history. But the contrary is true. It is more usually statues, lording it over civic space, which shut off debate through their invitation to reverence."
History is better served by putting Men in Stone in museums
Related
Churchill's statue may have to be put in a museum. I hope so!