| What happens when our values change, but what we have set in stone does not?From Berlin to Moscow, Seoul to Hiroshima, the Philippines to Israel, Prisoners of History gives a bold new account of the way the world reacted in the wake of World War Two.Amongst many questions, the book asks: Why is Russia still building victory monuments at a prolific rate for a war now seventy 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 Seoul of a young girl with a bird on her shoulder cause such controversy? How has Japan created a world-famous monument to peace whilst taking such offence at China's memorial to the Nanjing Massacre?Challenging known wisdom, Keith Lowe offers a powerful and perspective-changing work on the faults in national memory, and how monuments built to commemorate the past, can hold us hostage to bad history. |
