Reviewed by Freddie Ping
The question of whether Confederate leaders, cast in bronze, should loom over the residents of American cities has become as pressing as it has been provocative in the last decade. Between 1865 and 2014, just five monuments to the Confederacy were removed from public places; since then, perhaps two hundred of them—mostly statues—have been hidden away, or in the case of Robert E. Lee’s Charlottesville likeness, melted down. While some seven hundred statues remain standing, the willingness of local and state governments to entertain removal proposals is testament to a shifting racial consciousness which has placed Civil War memory at the centre of public discourse.
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