Monumental Lies
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€19.99
A01=Robert Bevan
authencity
Author_Robert Bevan
built environment
Category=AMA
Category=AMG
Category=JPW
conservation
culture wars
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
facadism
historical evidence
statue wars
Product details
- ISBN 9781839761881
- Weight: 317g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 28 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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How the past is memorialized can have a dangerous influence on the future. Monumental Lies exposes the truths buried at contested heritage sites and demands that we safeguard the material evidence of history from both malign defenders and over-enthusiastic erasure. Robert Bevan challenges us to rethink our relationship with our contested spaces, from colonial statues and the physical legacy of fascism, to fake post-conflict reconstructions and ethno-nationalist narratives about beauty and tradition. He questions symbolic power and symbolic changes and explains why wording on a plaque is never a substitute for tackling problem monuments through artistic transformations at scale.
A Financial Times Best Book of 2022
A Financial Times Best Book of 2022
Robert Bevan is a journalist, author and heritage consultant. He has been architecture critic for the London Evening Standard and for newspapers internationally including The Australian and the Australian Financial Review. He currently writes for Bloomberg, Dezeen, The Art Newspaper and the Times Literary Supplement among others. He is a member of ICOMOS-ICORP and Blue Shield UK, bodies which advise UNESCO on world heritage in conflict.
