This article interprets the kula system through the lens of the Laozi, a Chinese classic of the 6th century BCE. Laozi's ideas regarding “esteeming goods,” “non-accumulation,” and “small realms with few people” allow us to understand why kula shells and names are precious but impossible to accumulate and how kula serves to keep societies small and peaceful with its subtle practice of organizations, technologies, and calendars. Through exemplary “elders” who esteem goods hard to accumulate, the kula operates as a void system close to the spontaneous order idealized by Laozi, who promoted the ideal of the non-accumulative Sage. Epistemologically, the article continues the anthropological tradition of perspectivist comparison by proposing a Sinic interpretation, a version of multi-universalism that does not intend to invalidate the existing universalism but seeks to transcend the view of a singular western universalism and multiple non-Western exceptionalisms.

These capsule case studies of contestations over monuments illuminate the global iconoclasm that has marked our recent past and attend to the many registers and settings in which publics are challenging seemingly settled historical narratives. They take readers to monumental public campaigns in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Belgium, and the United States. Each capsule includes an image, a short description and suggestions for further reading. We hope that these might prove useful as teaching texts, and we have where possible included multimedia sources.