Every Monument Will Fall

Every Monument Will Fall is an extraordinary intervention. If you want to understand the stakes and the limitations of contemporary conflict over culture and colonial history this bold, provocative book is an indispensable resource. – Paul GilroyHicks’ must-read book describes how it was possible for a human skull to be made into a drinking cup and used in a genteel Oxford college, well into the 21st century, as if empire were an eternal state of nature. Read it to see why the media adulation of aristocracy and monarchy conceals the long history of British state violence, slavery and racism. Read it to learn new ways to be anti-racist, abolitionist and to tell other stories than those commemorated by the monuments that surround us, from statues, to museums and the police. – Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of WHITE SIGHT

Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. The author of eight books, he has written articles, essays and op-eds for a variety of journals, magazines and newspapers, from the Times Literary Supplement to Apollo Magazine, Art Review, Artnet, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Independent.