Dethroning historical reputations: universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors in Bloomington, MN

The campaigns in universities across the world to reject, rename and remove historic benefactions have brought the present into collision with the past. In Britain, people are reconsidering civic monuments in light of an imperial past. In America, memorials to leaders of the Confederacy and to other slaveholders have been the subject of intense dispute. Should we continue to honour historic figures whose actions are now deemed ethically unacceptable? How can we reconcile the views of the past with those of the present? This essays in this book, from a conference at the Institute of Historical Research, examine these issues from different perspectives.