“Reading Schildgen's new book is a remarkable experience. She takes us from the toppling of the statue of Saddam in modern day Iraq and the destruction of the Valley of the Buddhas in Afghanistan, to Reformation England and medieval Byzantium, from UNESCO to the Bible, demonstrating how complicated and conflicted our instincts are to preserve or to destroy the symbols of our built environment.”-- John M. Ganim, President, New Chaucer Society and Professor of English, University of California, Riverside

“This is in so many ways a monumental undertaking--quite literally about monuments, of course, but also massive in its intellectual and historical reach as well as in its implications. She looks at iconoclasm in a variety of its manifestations--from medieval Byzantium, to seventeenth-century Protestant "Reformations", to late eighteenth-century French revolutionary atheism, to twentieth-century Stalinist purges of Russian orthodoxy. Schildgen brings this historical swing between destruction and preservation up to date with our contemporary scene.”-- Peter Hawkins, Professor of Religion, Boston University