Clare Mulley

Monuments to the second world war are looking increasingly dodgy

Keith Lowe finds some highly contentious memorials across the world, with one nation’s heroes being another’s war criminals

Part of the memorial to the ‘Heroes of Stalingrad’, overlooking Volgograd. In the background is ‘The Motherland Calls’, Europe’s tallest statue. Getty Images
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  • Prisoners of History: What Monuments to the Second World War Tell us About Our History and Ourselves

    Keith Lowe

    William Collins, pp. 320, £20

Most monuments are literally set in stone — or cast in bronze to better survive the weather. Being enduring, they arguably become ‘prisoners of history’, as this fascinating series of essays by Keith Lowe is titled. Conversely, perspectives are like the weather, constantly changing, as relationships between and within nations, and views on social and moral norms, shift over time, as we are seeing particularly at present.

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