Smashing Statues; or, Reasons for Removing Monuments

Monuments are never neutral. Nor are they really about history. Instead, they are material symbols of power. So argues art historian Erin L. Thompson in Smashing Statues, a timely intervention into ongoing debates about the thorny place of monuments in the contemporary United States of America. Thompson states that, since almost all monuments are created and controlled by powerful people to advance their interests, and indeed their own versions of society, they are more akin to pledges of allegiance rather than historical markers. While most monuments are “designed to invoke particular reactions . . . [which] it can be impossible to escape” (150), their interpretations and meanings are nevertheless subject to changing cultural sensibilities and political situations. In response to these changes, monuments often become reevaluated and, in turn, ruined, removed, or replaced.Concentrating on a case study of American monument culture, Thompson offers manifold examples of recent or continuing controversies surrounding the country's monuments. They range from the grandiose, such as Georgia's massive mountain carving of Stone Mountain glorifying the Confederacy, to the more obscure, like New Hampshire's memorial to the early settler Hanna Duston, interestingly the first monument in the country honoring a woman. From Christopher Columbus to Robert E. Lee, the examples illustrate the local and nationwide anxieties, agitations, and anger enveloping these objects and what they (aim to) express. Thompson considers the complicated histories and sociocultural implications of these monuments for local communities and the country overall. In each case, the debates over whether to display or dismantle these monuments are fraught with tendentious disputes accompanied by accusations of revisionist erasing of the past.These so-called revisionist attempts, however, are not unique to contemporary debates but, instead, have their own history, and perhaps the most surprising fact revealed by Thompson is that these controversies, while seemingly so current, are not unprecedented in the United States; in fact, American monument culture began “not in creation, but in destruction. Long before American artists ever created a monument, American protestors tore one down” (4). Specifically, eighteenth-century New York City's King George III statue generated much perturbation among republican Americans; however, “as long as there were people with enough power to insist that this monument went up and stayed up, it adorned New York as though no one had ever even entertained a disrespectful thought about the king and his rule” (5). The American Revolution upended America's balance of power, leading to the statue's toppling (and melting into musket balls for battles against British forces).Yet no matter how much a community desires their disposal, some statues can be difficult to get rid of, often because of legislative obstacles and judicial challenges. As Thompson explores, state laws and governmental policies are often created and applied to prevent altering monuments. For instance, despite Birmingham's residents wanting the removal of the city's Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which “praised a Confederate past [it] didn't even have” (124), formal attempts by the city council to scrap it failed because of Alabaman state laws prohibiting alteration of this monument. After sustained protests, it was eventually taken down, resulting in the city being fined for its removal.Rather than policy interventions or protests, perhaps the most constructive approach to dealing with disputed monuments is with community consultations. Thompson outlines the restorative-justice process for addressing the American Indigenous activist Mike Forcia's agitations against a Christopher Columbus statue in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Consisting of “talking circles,” this process involves a local community negotiating how to repair harms done by the vexing monuments. But, as Thompson warns, community consultations cannot be imposed “as a requirement without the existence of a real process for having these conversations” (172). To be effective, community consultations need accompanying legal or regulatory mechanisms on which to base, guide, and determine their choices; otherwise the retaining or removing of a statue will depend on the undemocratic decisions of a coterie of bureaucrats and judges, or even a mob of protestors and vigilantes.Curiously, as the central focus of the book, monuments are not clearly defined or described and are conflated with statues. Admittedly, monuments and statues are often the same thing; however, there can be differences between them, usually related to the human figure, with monuments representing ideas or events and statues portraying people. Thompson does, however, proffer a useful distinction between monuments and memorials. Monuments, the author notes, spotlight victors and display individuals whose lives or deeds are supposedly emulative, whereas memorials mourn those who have suffered and highlight things that should never happen again. Thompson is primarily preoccupied with (unequal) power and therefore focuses on monuments.While most of Thompson's examples are enlightening within the American context, there are some areas in which they could be strengthened. The book's overall structure is arranged according to two broad approaches—specifically, the first part focusing on how the United States got its monuments, and the second part suggesting what should be done with them. While detailed descriptions of the controversies surrounding the monuments discussed are delivered, their intersections are not explicitly drawn. Their impact could be increased by more closely weaving them together to better reveal their convergences, divergences, and parallels. Perhaps a thematic framework, or chronological list, could have helped situate each example and illuminate their intersections. Other issues left largely unaddressed include whether new monuments, in general, are needed and, more specifically, if they should replace old ones. Thompson notes that monuments are needed “to honor ideas and actions” (159) and that the United States needs new monuments as the country engages in fraught attempts at reconsidering its (multifaceted) national identity. Describing, and maybe making a case for, what kinds of new monuments are needed, what they might (come to) represent, and whether they necessitate the replacement of old ones would be thought-provoking. After all, future generations might consider today's monuments as problematic or offensive and consequently remove them, thereby continuing this apparently perpetual cycle of monument creation and destruction. Examining the possible implications of breaking this cycle by no longer creating, let alone having, monuments would be intriguing.Ultimately, Smashing Statues supplies a stimulating survey of contemporary contestations about American monuments. Scholars and students across various disciplines—from cultural studies to political science to (American) history—studying aspects of monument culture should find this book's overall discussion of interest and its case study on the USA illuminating. Additionally, cultural policymakers, social activists, and artists might be inspired by the book's examples that could, in turn, help inform their respective initiatives. Indeed, this book serves as a useful departure point concerning what is at stake when monuments stay up or are smashed

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