For many years the academic sociologist Frank Furedi has been among the strongest conservative voices in the front line of the culture wars. The target of his latest book is the systematic campaign to discredit the history of the West in the interest of a modern political agenda. The vandalising of statues, the ‘decolonisation’ of institutions and curricula, the recasting of museums and the rearrangement of libraries are all symptoms of something more fundamental. Furedi argues that historical memory is the foundation of western identity and culture. The object of the campaigners is to discredit the West’s ideals and achievements. The result has been to persuade a generation of young people that our history and identity is something to be ashamed of and to dissolve the bonds of shared experience which make us a community.
This is an important book, which chronicles more fully than any other work that I know the gradual development of this rage against the past.
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