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Episode details

Radio 4,16 Sep 2017,57 mins

As the Statues Fall

Archive on 4

Available for over a year

From Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College or Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville - public statuary is a lightning conductor for popular protest and unrest. But why are these figures of the past - often erected in another era with different moral expectations - so often in the front line of political conflict today? Lawrence Pollard and guests gather in the sound archives to listen to the symbolic moments that statues fall and explore the difference between iconoclasm by the powerful and powerless and what these events tell us about history, identity and nature of collective memory. With Dr Madge Dresser, Dr Rahul Rao, Afua Hirsch and Dr Tiffany Jenkins. Producer: Viv Jones.

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