History needs both @Kamaji
A statue reminds us of a significant event and/or person ---- it conveys and perpetuates honor. A history book can be the genisus of interest and discussion, but so, too, can a statue --- especially for our young.
Don't be quite so dismissive of the removal and destruction of our historical statues and monuments. Those orchestrating their demise are not merely removing history, they are replacing it. George Floyd has a place of perpetual honor; Thomas Jefferson's is being erased.
This matters.
Maybe so, but it is not history, and nothing is lost to an understanding of history if a statue is taken down.
Would the English lose their understanding of their history if the statue of Nelson on his column were removed from Trafalgar Square?
Or would they only lose it if books like this were to disappear:
https://www.amazon.com/Nelsons-Trafalgar-Battle-Changed-World/dp/0143037951/ref=asc_df_0143037951/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312174369544&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7912568023087227308&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9067609&hvtargid=pla-488076553569&psc=1Nelson's column is an opaque bit of statuary, like a fantasy in some wealthy person's person secret garden; it doesn't provide any historical meat regarding who Admiral Nelson was, why his victory was considered so consequential, nor why the conflict in which he was the victor was important, nor why it started, nor what lessons can be drawn from the fact that it wasn't avoided.
Whether a statue stays or goes should be strictly a matter for the people who live in the community that contains the statue, to be decided by their own agreed-upon procedures. That is a purely political matter within that community, and it is there matter alone.
Whether a book of historical fact, including opinions thereon, and conclusions to be drawn from those facts, remains is a matter of importance to the world, and not something that should be removed or edited at the whim of local political narratives.
Focusing on statuary as if losing some blocks of marble and chunks of bronze is the loss of all historical fact, is in fact precisely to play into the hands of those people who think it really matters to remove those things. And by opposing them on that ground - watching the magician's waving hand - without more closely paying attention to what they are doing to the history textbooks themselves - the hidden hand that actually contains the "disappearing" coin - is to let one's self be gulled into letting actual history be destroyed.
If the statue of David were destroyed, that would be a tragedy, for art historians, collectors, and aesthetes, if the books that contain the facts that led up to Nelson's victory are destroyed, that is a tragedy for the world.
