Smashing Statues

Available through Norton, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, or your favorite independent bookstore.

An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? And who gets to decide which ones should stay up and which should come down?

In Smashing Statues, I trace the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, starting with the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom atop the US Capitol, and explore the surprising motivations behind such contemporary flashpoints as the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol. Combining gripping narratives with legal, political, and historical analysis, the book aims to give readers the context they need to consider the fundamental question: Whose voices must be heard and whose pain must remain private?

Interviews

“Interview: The Historian Scrutinizing Our Idea of Monuments,” New Yorker, March 3, 2022.

The Today Show, discussing protests over controversial monuments, July 7, 2020.

Bloomberg News (Science Of), discussing why people destroy monuments, August 28, 2020.

“Interview: What Does It Mean to Tear Down a Statue?” New York Times, June 11, 2020.

Publications

“The Most Controversial Statue in America Surrenders to the Furnace,” New York Times, October 27, 2023.

“Meet the Indigenous Activist Who Toppled Minnesota’s Christopher Columbus Statue (excerpt from Smashing Statues),” Smithsonian Magazine, February 3, 2022.

“Confederate Heritage Groups are Keeping the Lost Cause on Life Support,” Washington Post, January 23, 2022.

“Ghosting the Confederacy,” Harper’s Bazaar, October 18, 2021.

“The South’s Monuments Will Rise Again” (opinion piece arguing against re-installation of removed Confederate monuments), Washington Post, March 5, 2021.

“Why Just ‘Adding Context’ to Controversial Monuments May Not Change Minds,” Smithsonian Magazine, December 18, 2020.

“What's the Point of Beheading a Statue?” Art in America, June 22, 2020.

Possession

Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors (Yale 2016), was named an NPR Best Book of 2016. Read an excerpt publishing in The Art Newspaper: “William Hamilton's Prize Possession.”

Praise for Possession

“Riveting... fascinating... treasure trove of a book... absorbing and bizarre.”—Wall Street Journal

“This slim volume is just bursting with read-them-to-a-friend anecdotes of collectors who’d stop at nothing. . . . Art is passion; Thompson understands. . . . The marvelous Possession offers a savvy history of passion as politics, a delightful collection of collectors and a love of art that might just send you to a museum.”—NPR

“Timely and immensely enjoyable; . . . a cavalcade of history’s most ardent lovers of the antique. . . . Thompson’s brilliantly told tales create a sparkling tableau that invites further reflection on the politics of even the most solipsistic collectors.”— The Atlantic