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Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth About the Past
Monumental Lies Culture Wars and the Truth About the Past Author:Robert Bevan How statues, heritage and the built environment have become the battleground for the culture wars — The past is weaponised in culture wars and cynically edited by those who wish to impose their ideology upon the physical spaces around us. Robert Bevan argues that monuments, architecture and cities are material evidence of history. They are the ph... more »ysical trace of past events, of previous ways of thinking and of politics, economics and values that percolate through to today.
When our cities are reshaped as fantasies about the past, when monuments tell lies about who deserves honour or are destroyed and the struggle for justice forgotten, the historical record is being manipulated.
When decisions are based on misinformed assumptions about how the built environment influences our behaviour or we are told, falsely, that certain architectural styles are alien to our cities, or when space pretends to be public but is private, or that physical separation is natural, we are being manipulated. Monumental Lies explores the threats to our understanding of the built environment and how it impacts on our lives, as well as offers solutions to how to combat the ideological manipulations.« less