Skopje statue
A nice excerpt from this interview with Tyler Cowen, discussing the importance of travel for learning and using "entry points" to power your learning:
One way to learn Macedonia is to learn about the statues dispute ... so many of the statues are historically controversial. Like, there's a statue of someone who would seem to be Alexander the Great, but the Greeks claim Alexander the Great. So if it's explicitly Alexander, the Greeks get upset, they will be more concerned with blocking [Macedonia's] entry into the European Union. So it's Alexander but it isn't Alexander.
And so just by reading about the statue that both is and isn't Alexander the Great at the same time... it's a great way to learn about Macedonian history, politics more generally, international relations. So I think architecture is one of the best entry points, and it's something you always see. You can't avoid it anywhere you go. And if it's ugly, often so much the better.
Around 25:00 of the episode. Here's the statue (a) in question.
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