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History is history. What happened happened. You can’t erase that by removing books, statues, etc.

Back in the seventies, during the cold war, I was at the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. The USSR had an exhibit in the form of a bookstore. The books were in English and inexpensive. One of the books I bought was titled “British Foreign Policy during WWII.”

When I got the books I bought home and read some of them I understood why they were inexpensive. The books were funded by the USSR as conduits of propaganda.

The thing was, there were little if any outright lies. The facts, the history if you will, couldn’t be denied because, well, everyone knew what happened. The facts were not subversive except possibly in the choosing of which ones to use and which ones to ignore.

Where the subversion came in was the interpretation of the facts, the assignment of motives to the various players that made it seem the Soviets won the war in spite of the Allies. The facts were indisputable, what they meant was not.

Removing books can erase unpalatable motives and allow for a revision of what we think we know.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - William Faulkner

Actually, you’re completely wrong, unfortunately...