IntroductionPART I 1: Great Explorers and Curious Collectors 2: The Birth of the Public Museum 3: Antiquity Fever 4: Cases of LootPART II 5: Museum Wars 6: Who Owns Culture? 7: The Rise of Identity Museums 8: Atonement: Making Amends for Past Wrongs 9: Burying Knowledge: The Fate of Human Remains Concluding Thoughts Notes Further Reading Index
Tiffany Jenkins is an author, academic, broadcaster, and consultant on cultural policy. Her writing credits include the Independent, the Art Newspaper, the Guardian, the Scotsman (for which she was a weekly columnist on social and cultural issues) and the Spectator. She is an Honorary Fellow in Department of Art History at the University of Edinburgh; a former visiting fellow in the Department of Law at the London School of Economics and was previously the director of the Arts and Society Programme at the Institute of Ideas. She competed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Kent and divides her time between London and Edinburgh. She has advised a number of organisations on cultural policy, including Trinity College, Dublin; English Heritage; the British Council; the Norwegian government; the University of Oslo; Norwegian Theatres and Orchestras; and the National Touring Network for Performing Arts, Norway.
Excellent.
*James Heartfield, Spiked*
Full of fascinating material.
*Christopher Allen, Australian Book Review*
5 stars: From Greece's Elgin Marbles to Nigeria's Benin Bronzes,
archaeological finds from around the world are held by the West's
top museums. This is the story of their often bloody acquisitions -
and a well argued case for keeping them there.
*Juanita Coulson, The Lady*
Books of the year 2016
*Francis Phillips, Catholic Herald*
Ms. Jenkins has produced a courageous and well-argued book; the
howls you hear in the background are those of the contrition
crowd.
*Wall Street Journal*
Brilliant and fascinating
*James Delingpole, Spectator*
The dubious means by which museum collections were gathered has
fuelled the demands for treasures to be repatriated. Surely they
ought to be returned? No, says Tiffany Jenkins, a culture writer,
and she marshals a powerful case.
*Robbie Millen, The Times*
This book is both a lucid account of how the great world museums
came by their treasures and a robust argument as to why (human
remains such as bones aside) they should keep them.
*Michael Prodger, RA Magazine*
An outstanding achievement, clear-headed, wide-ranging and
incisive.
*John Carey, The Sunday Times*
Tiffany Jenkins applies her considerable experience of cultural
policy to construct an excellent survey ... Her level-headed and
balanced book ... is a valuable contribution to the international
debate, and will enrich audiences and scholars for a long time to
come.
*Mark Fisher, Spectator*
[Jenkins] has much of interest to say about the development of
museums and their changing ideology.
*Peter Jones, BBC History magazine*
a potted but vivid history
*Art Newspaper*
[An] eloquent defence of museums ... The arguments in this book are
well-considered and not just one-sided ... A well-researched and
thought-provoking take on a very complex and controversial subject.
Using an array of captivating examples, the book addresses a range
of broader heritage issues such as treatment of human remains, the
role of museums today and how to protect the past.
*Lucia Marchini, Minerva*
Jenkins does an excellent job of portraying the extreme reactions
elicited by repatriation conversations.
*David Hurst Thomas, Nature*
clear, informed and well-referenced ... Specialists, and anyone
with an interest in contemporary culture, can equally enjoy and
learn from this calm, balanced and respectful review, in a field
distinguished more by polemic than wisdom.
*Mike Pitts, British Archaeology*
Jenkin's book provides a welcome introduction to some of the
questions facing museums today.
*William St Clair, Literary Review*
[Jenkins] elegantly lines up the arguments and provides careful,
balanced and well-considered responses.
*Adrian Spooner, Classics for All*
Jenkins skilfully critiques the manifold issues that beleaguer
museums today.
*David Lowenthal, Evening Standard*
Anyone who thinks that issues of cultural property and
"repatriation" are simple should read this book. Jenkins elegantly
explores the complexity of individual cases such as the Elgin
Marbles and of the big overarching question: who owns culture?
*Mary Beard, author of SPQR: A history of Ancient Rome*
The question of how best to protect the world's cultural heritage,
and what role museums, nations states, and international bodies
play in doing so, or in not doing so, is a vexed one. And in the
time of IS, it is an urgent one. Tiffany Jenkins sets out a clear,
compelling, and at times controversial case for, and sometimes
against, museums as repositories and interpreters of the past in a
time of nation building. She argues that we are asking too much of
our museums, that we want them to serve narrow ideological purposes
of cultural and political identity. There is much to agree with in
this argument, and of course, much with which to disagree. That's
what makes this book a must-read.
*James Cuno, art historian, author, and President and CEO of the J.
Paul Getty Trust*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
