@Kamaji
Next time you have nothing to do on a weekend and are bored,ask all the teens and 20-somethings you know to name the book they are reading now,and the last book they read.
No,it is a VISUAL representative of history. A statement as to something of importance that happened.
Or should be,and WAS before statues of professional felons started having statues of them put up in public parks because they are of the new "master race".
So long as the books are there, an enterprising reader can still find them, even if it takes some effort. And this regardless of whether the statues are still there or not.
ONLY readers find them,and there are damn few readers today compared to the number even 20 years ago.
On the other hand,a statue is a visual reminder of an historic event every time you see it.
For example,I am reminded of how uninformed and depraved the typical citizen is that supported the statue of George Floyd. What does it say about black "culture" that such an animal is honored by so many black people and idiot,brain-washed whites?
And what highly regarded cultures left no stature, megaliths, temples or monuments behind, or at least left their mark on those from bygone eras?
It is the effigies, the monuments, the carvings on temple walls and in deep canyons that give us the impetus to deem some civilization worthy of investigation, barring an historical reference.
As to the latter, go ahead and pick up a mainstream history book (Secondary school level, if you can find one) and compare it with one from 100 years ago, at least for history relevant to both books. Different stories.
Primary sources don't change, but are buried beneath levels of spin and judged by the standards of the era in which they were analyzed. To assess something like Original Intent (and the groundbreaking significance thereof) , you have to be able to head trip back to the era and culture that wrote the document(s), That isn't done in the majority of current curricula. It's all based on a skewed interpretation in light of current and judgemental biased beliefs.
But a statue, regardless of today's interpretation of the past, indicates that person was held in high enough regard as to be 'immortalized' in some durable medium, no small act, and ever requiring the expenditure of resources which would be significant in any era. That that occurred and those sacrifices were made demands investigation as to why, into the mores and deeds of the individual and era. That's something hard to just edit out of an online history with a few mouse clicks, and a presence which will endure past the flawed judgements of a given age.
Which is why the artifacts of history MUST be destroyed for the 'reset' to work. Those who remember can be eliminated or sidelined. The books can be burned, the documents reproduced, with alterations, the commentary of the past discredited by propaganda, but the statues, the monuments cannot persist without raising inconvenient questions.