What Monuments Tell Us About Our History and Ourselves
Keith Lowe was born in 1970 and studied English Literature at Manchester University. After twelve years as a history publisher, he embarked on a full-time career as a writer and historian, and is now recognised on both sides of the Atlantic as an authority on the Second World War and its aftermath. He is the author of Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg 1943, and Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, which won the 2013 PEN/Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History. In 2017 he published The Fear and the Freedom, to great acclaim. His books have been translated into twenty languages.
‘[An] inspired idea … Always thoughtful and evocative, sometimes
controversial … Lowe’s sensitive, disturbing book should be
compulsory reading for both statue builders and statue topplers.
Too many memorials of all kinds seek to promote deceits or
half-truths.’
MAX HASTINGS, THE SUNDAY TIMES ‘[A] brilliantly researched and
timely book … Lowe is not afraid to tread on sensitive ground, but
he does so with the integrity that comes from really knowing his
material’
THE DAILY MAIL, FIVE STARS ‘Such a provocative perspective makes
Lowe’s choice of monuments important. The well-balanced range here
enables the retelling of some remarkable war stories, while also
providing fascinating insights into the ways different nations have
remembered or denied issues around national identity and the glory
and horrors of war … this is some of the most thought-provoking
writing about the Second World War that I have read for a long
while’
SPECTATOR ‘In this timely book, which neatly combines history, art
criticism and travelogue, Lowe examines 25 monuments to the Second
World War spread across three continents … Lowe is a fine guide to
these monuments because he feels the moral force — for good or bad
— of each site he visits’
THE TIMES, BOOK OF THE WEEK ‘Time after time
throughout Prisoners of History, Keith Lowe’s
commentaries are more articulate and supple than the monuments they
describe, interpret and criticise’
THE LITERARY REVIEW ‘Keith Lowe’s book could not be more timely …
his observations seem uncannily prescient … he is sharp on cultural
and national differences in perceptions of the war’
STANDPOINT MAGAZINE
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