Culture

Welsh historians explore global disputes over statues in new book

16 Oct 2026 2 minute read

The empty pedestal of the statue of Edward Colton in Bristol, the day after protesters felled the statue and rolled it into the harbour. The ground is covered with Black Lives Matter placards. Picture by Caitlin Hobbs (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Nation.Cymru staff

Historians at Swansea University have published a book examining how communities around the world respond to monuments associated with divisive and painful histories.

Contested Histories: Global Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future of Public Monuments brings together ten essays covering countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, India, Ireland, Italy, Libya, the Philippines and the United States.

The collection is edited by Swansea historians Dr Simon John and Professor Tomás Irish, alongside university graduate Hannah Lyons, and published by Bloomsbury Academic.

It grew out of an international conference hosted by the university in 2021, following the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol the previous year.

Contributors examine why monuments are erected and how their meaning changes over time, exploring responses ranging from artistic interventions and symbolic alterations to removal.

Dr John, Associate Professor of Medieval History, said: “Whether it’s the statue of Rhodes in Oxford or the now-toppled statue of Colston in Bristol, monuments continue to provoke controversy in the twenty-first century.

“The guiding aim of this volume is to draw lessons from how past societies have responded to controversial monuments, better to understand the controversies of our own age, and how these debates might unfold in the future.”

The essays also consider how artists, activists and communities are developing new ways to commemorate the past in public spaces.

Professor Irish, Professor of Modern History, said: “Contested Histories is an important book because it highlights how and why public monuments have generated controversies across the globe in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

“While many of these issues gained heightened public prominence in the summer of 2020, the volume shows that monuments have long histories of being contested, and that this will continue – and take new forms – in the decades ahead.”

Contested Histories is available in hardback and ebook.

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