![]() ![]() ![]() Landrieu is surprised to see the history he did not know celebrated in a landscape he did not see. ![]() Viewed from this perspective, Landrieu’s book is above all an account of the surprise of discovery: his surprise at discovering this hidden regime’s history and his surprise at its continuing political power. But this outgoing regime-unlike the communists in East Berlin or the baathists in Baghdad-is one that is hidden in plain sight and may not be outgoing at all. It seems reasonable, then, to consider that the current struggle to remove Confederate monuments is symbolic of a struggle to change a regime here in the United States of America. Statues of Lenin fell across Eastern Europe during the revolutions of 1989 and statues of Saddam Hussein tumbled in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003. Pulling down statues symbolizes regime change. Mitch Landrieu’s book, In the Shadow of Statues, is the backstory of the speech he gave as mayor of New Orleans on May 19, 2017, following his removal of three Confederate statues-Lee, Davis, and Beauregard-from the city. Thoughts after reading Mitch Landrieu’s, In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History, Viking, 2018. ![]()
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