Statues and names of military bases for example, celebrate people. As far as I am aware history is mostly doing just fine in history books and places like Wikipedia. No need to conflate these things, is there?
How do you know it has taken off? When a new roman emperor took place he mobilized an incredible amount of people to replace as much stuff as possible from the previous ruler at a scale hardly comparable to what's happening today
Do you have specific examples you're thinking of, specifically regarding "purging history"? My university degree is in history and I have never used statutes or building names to study, but it's hard to have a discussion when the meat of the argument is only obliquely hinted at.