Statues of Jefferson are coming down in the U.S.; statues of Stalin are going up in Russia

Americans are again battling over history.

Is the year 1619 as important as 1776? Shall we tear down statues of Robert E. Lee — or go further and topple Thomas Jefferson too? Is the left telling a “twisted web of lies” (as President Trump put it) about America’s “magnificent” history, or was the U.S. indeed built on a rotten foundation of genocide, disenfranchisement, bigotry and oppression?

Angry debates have spread from social media to school board meetings to state capitols to the White House, as Americans haggle over who we really are and the past that formed us.

But let’s not be myopic. The United States is not alone in this. History is being rethought, reinterpreted, relitigated — and, all too often, cynically manipulated — around the world.