{"product_id":"monumentality","title":"Monumentality","description":"This  compelling volume invites readers to reimagine how monuments shape history,  identity, and public space. Monumentality is explored as a dynamic and  contested idea—one that moves beyond grand buildings and enduring structures  to understand how societies remember the past and envision the  future.    Engaging scholarly essays, accompanied by focused  reflections on objects held in Getty collections, analyze the emotional,  ideological, and technological dimensions of monuments by tracing their  changing meanings across cultures and historical periods. Spanning themes of  destruction, circulation, territorialization, and empire, the book  investigates topics such as the ruin aesthetic of the Paris Commune, the  material remnants of Buddhism in India, the construction of Cold War dams,  and the influence of Almohad minaret architecture. Throughout, readers will  encounter the enduring effects of colonialism, modernization, and settlements  on societies around the world—from nineteenth-century West Africa to postwar  Japan and Guam to present-day Israel and Ukraine.     Together, these studies integrate histories of art, architecture,  and urban landscapes to examine the role of monuments in contemporary life.     Monumentality offers fresh  perspectives on what we choose to honor, why the past is preserved (or  forgotten), and how the complex narratives embedded in memorials or public  art condition our experience of the present.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57536486637941,"sku":"9798887120676","price":55.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/monumentality","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}