PRISONERS OF HISTORY: What Monuments to WW2 Tell Us

From Berlin to Moscow, Seoul to Hiroshima, the Philippines to Israel, Lithuania to Washington, the Bomber Command Memorial in London, the Shrine to the Fallen, Bologna, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Ball in China, Auschwitz in Poland, Mussolini's tomb, Hitler's bunker, a statue of Stalin, Coventry Cathedral and the Cross of Nail, the book is a bold new account of the way the world reacted in the wake of the Second World War. Monuments were built to tell a story, but what story? The cataclysm of global conflict was experienced very differently across the world, and the monuments reflect this. Bestselling historian Keith Lowe takes us on a global tour. He asks why is Russia still erecting victory monuments at a dizzying rate for a war some 70 years over. Why, despite loathing his legacy, does the town of Mussolini's final resting place still honour his tomb like a shrine? Why does a bronze statue in South Korea of a young girl with a bird on her shoulder cause such outrage in neighbouring Japan? How did a local controversy over a monument in New Jersey escalate into a full-blown international incident between Poland and the USA? Offering a practical history and a perspective-changing case for the power of our symbols, each monument here represents heroes or monsters, victims or moments of apocalypse and none of them are really about the past at all. With useful maps and descriptions not only of figurative statues and abstract sculptures but also shrines, tombs, ruins, murals, parks and architectural features with a concentration on World War Two monuments simply because of their quality. 346pp, illus.