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A review by spaceonthebookcase
Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments by Erin Thompson
5.0
Smashing Statues by Erin L. Thompson takes the reader on a journey throughout American history and it’s turbulent and divisive relationship with statues. Specifically statues and monuments surrounding the Confederate movement, slavery and American figureheads.
What struck me the most while listening to this eBook was how much I didn’t know. Of course, you’d have to be living under a rock to miss the culture shift happening across the nation but the history of what statues and monuments we have, who paid for them, who fought to keep them, the laws that now protect them…etc, are not exactly taught in history class. At least, not in any high school or undergrad American history class I ever took.
The authors focus on Stone Mountain, located not far from Atlanta, Georgia churned my stomach the most. I remember vacationing there as a child with my family but I didn’t know about the prison (read slave) labor that constructed it. My understanding of the confederacy, at that age anyway, was very rudimentary. Erin L. Thompson has inspired me to dig more so that my children, now the same age I was, will not remain ignorant.
Overall I thought the ebook was well written and flowed well. It is heavy on dates and people, so I took it in by chunking instead of just listening straight through, but I don’t think that is a bad thing.
Smashing Statues will be released on 2/8/22. I plan to buy and donate copies of this book to my daughters schools.
Thank you to @netgalley, OrangeSky Audio and author, Erin L. Thompson for allowing me access to an eARC copy in exchange for a honest review.
What struck me the most while listening to this eBook was how much I didn’t know. Of course, you’d have to be living under a rock to miss the culture shift happening across the nation but the history of what statues and monuments we have, who paid for them, who fought to keep them, the laws that now protect them…etc, are not exactly taught in history class. At least, not in any high school or undergrad American history class I ever took.
The authors focus on Stone Mountain, located not far from Atlanta, Georgia churned my stomach the most. I remember vacationing there as a child with my family but I didn’t know about the prison (read slave) labor that constructed it. My understanding of the confederacy, at that age anyway, was very rudimentary. Erin L. Thompson has inspired me to dig more so that my children, now the same age I was, will not remain ignorant.
Overall I thought the ebook was well written and flowed well. It is heavy on dates and people, so I took it in by chunking instead of just listening straight through, but I don’t think that is a bad thing.
Smashing Statues will be released on 2/8/22. I plan to buy and donate copies of this book to my daughters schools.
Thank you to @netgalley, OrangeSky Audio and author, Erin L. Thompson for allowing me access to an eARC copy in exchange for a honest review.