INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
1: GREAT EXPLORERS AND CURIOUS COLLECTORS
2: THE BIRTH OF THE PUBLIC MUSEUM
3: ANTIQUITY FEVER
4: CASES OF LOOT
PART TWO
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
INDEX
Tiffany Jenkins is an author, academic, broadcaster and columnist
who for four years wrote a weekly column on social and cultural
issues in the Scotsman. Her writing credits include BBC Culture,
Apollo, the Independent, the Art Newspaper, the Guardian and
Spectator. She has consulted widely in academia and museums on
cultural policy, most recently advising scholars and practitioners
at the University of Oslo,
the Norwegian Theatres and Orchestras, and the National Touring
Network for Performing Arts. As part of this, she contributed a
comparative study of cultural education in England and Norway. She
was previously the director of the Arts and Society Programme
at the Institute of Ideas and has been a visiting fellow at the
London School of Economics, Department of Law. Her first degree is
in art history, her PhD in sociology. She divides her time between
London and Edinburgh.
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*
an elegant and passionate study of the rise of the great museums,
and their recent lapse into self-dismemberment ... This is a book
not just about the fate of the modern museum, or the objects stored
within, but the fate of the Enlightenment spirit itself.
*Tom Slater, Spiked*
[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... |
|
