Two of von Tunzelmann's examples - the statue of George V in Delhi and the various 'imposing erections' of Rafael Trujillo's Dominican Republican dictatorship - are drawn from areas she has written about in other places books: Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007) and Red Heat. Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean (2011). But there's talk of Stalin, Lenin, the Duke of Cumberland, Saddam Hussein, Cecil Rhodes, Robert E Lee and Edward Colston also. Because of that, Daisy expected bullying to some degree, but four boys in particular, Rufio, Bryce, Morpheus, and Phoenix, set out to make her time there a living hell. They want her gone immediately, but Daisy doesn't scare easily. She knows what graduating from the academy can do for her, and she's not going anywhere.

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870): statue in Tivoli Circle, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, erected 1884, removed following protests by Take Em Down NOLA activists, 2017 On the other hand, the book delves deep into the life of social media stars and "cancelling". We often place unrealistic expectations on "influencers", expect them to be perfect, and far too many people delight in tearing them down when it turns out they weren't as perfect as they were pretending to be. Nothing makes us smell blood like hypocrisy, after all. The book contains an introduction, twelve main chapters – each focused on a historical figure who features as a created then fallen statue – and a concluding chapter. There are 13 images. Idol - like all of Louise's books - is a timely and incisive take on important socio-cultural issues. As always, her commentary is searing and her writing scalpel-sharp. Essentially this is a story about the subjectivity of memory and the curation and manipulation of the past to spin a suitable narrative. This is also a book about friendship and envy, and although this book is set in New York and Connecticut, the story throbs with the bitterness of Irish begrudgery.I've lived in this city long enough to know that the only thing these people can't forgive is poverty. If you have enough money, they'll forget everything."

King George III (1738–1820): statue in Bowling Green Park, New York City, erected 1770, pulled down by American revolutionaries, 1776 It would actually make a good book for teaching history at schools or as introductory parts of university courses. When I did my history degree the first part of our course was 'What is History?' and they used historical 'mysteries' to introduce us to the methodologies and practices of historical study. We looked at things like 'Was there a Robin Hood?', 'Who Killed JFK?', 'What Happened to the Romanovs' etc. It gave you an insight into the subject that opened it up in a fun and intelligent way. That's what von Tunzelmann's book does. It tells the stories of twelve statues to show us what history is, which I can only applaud. Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902): statue at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, erected 1934, removed following Rhodes Must Fall protests, 2015You can't give a man the power to make you cry. That's what they want and if you're weak enough to give it to them, they won't respect you. There's always one person who loves the other a little more in a relationship."

Cards on the table from the outset, I am one of those historians who saw Colston's statue getting yeeted into the sea in Bristol and immediately thought "Yes, good, History is happening". I have no time and no patience for those who say incidents of statue removal erase History, not least because the number of people I know who knew anything about Colston went from two (me and a mate from Bath) to dozens once his statue took a dunk. The Man of His Time" (i.e. that a historical figure should not be judged by modern standards): von Tunzelmann responds that many commemorated figures were atypical within their societies, and received criticism in their own lifetimes. I thought this was a timely story and although the characters weren’t likeable they were highly interesting. A highly entertaining read! People claimed they wanted the the truth but when faced with it, it was too messy for them to accept. The truth often felt like a story, one with plot holes, an unreliable narrator." A great example of how to do popular history well, Fallen Idols is at once briskly and accessibly written while also drawing on a great deal of historiography and contemporary cultural debate. Alex von Tunzelmann traces the rise and fall (and occasionally the rise again) of a dozen statues over the past 250 years, from a statue of George III in 1770s New York to one of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 to the 2020 toppling of the statue of the slaver Edward Colston, and uses them to think through issues of history, memory, memorialisation, myth-making and politics.Sands, Philippe (2 September 2021). "Monumental injustices — relics, racism and reparations". www.ft.com. Archived from the original on 11 September 2021 . Retrieved 10 September 2021. (subscription required) A gripping read from start to finish. People are going to be talking about this book for a long time to come! Thank you to NetGalley and to Random House UK for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Idol will be out on May 12th - guaranteed to be a hit! Kudos, Madam von Tunzelmann, for a book I put off for much too long. I am glad that I took the time to read it and hope others will too! Therefore, in my view, the Man of His Time argument still stands. Yet, it does not work for everyone and the best way to counter it is by actually relying on the other individuals of the time. If the people who lived at the same time of the person commemorated by the statue despised him, then there is a good chance we should judge him by their standards as well. One just has to think about King Leopold II to understand that Belgians of his time were appalled by him. But still, it’s not the dystopia I imagined. It’s not cruel or even intense. They tell us it is, and maybe in some ways they try to show us, but I felt nothing of that. It’s kind of like walking into a very high class shop, you know the pretentious people look at you lowly and you can get in trouble (not serious trouble) but there’s no rich person whipping out a knife or cremating the “poor” in the shoe aisle.