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Keeping Their Marbles: How The Treasures Of The Past Ended Up In Museums - And Why They Should Stay There

The fabulous collections housed in the world's most famous museums are trophies from an imperial age. Yet the huge crowds that each year visit the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, or the Metropolitan in New York have little idea that many of the objects on display were acquired by coercion or theft. Now the countries from which these treasures came would like them back. The Greek demand for the return of the Elgin Marbles is the tip of an iceberg that includes claims for the Benin Bronzes from Nigeria, sculpture from Turkey, scrolls and porcelain taken from the Chinese Summer Palace, textiles from Peru, the bust of Nefertiti, Native American sacred objects and Aboriginal human remain In Keeping Their Marbles, Tiffany Jenkins tells the bloody story of how western museums came to acquire these objects. She investigates why repatriation claims have soared in recent decades and demonstrates how it is the guilt and insecurity of the museums themselves that have stoked the demands for return. Contrary to the arguments of campaigners, she shows that sending artefacts back will not achieve the desired social change nor repair the wounds of history. Instead, this ground-breaking book makes the case for museums as centres of knowledge, demonstrating that no object has a single home and no one culture owns culture

Hardcover: 368 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (May 1, 2016)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0199657599

ISBN-13: 978-0199657599

Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 1.1 x 6.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #386,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Antiques & Collectibles > Marbles #67 in Books > Business & Money > Industries > Museums #125 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Library & Information Science > Library Management

While Tiffany Jenkins believes repatriation of the so-called Elgin marbles from Great Briton to Greece is inadvisable, the book charges off in a plethora of tangents: from shrunken heads, to victim complexes, to military adventurism, and on.She makes a good case for the dispersion of important cultural artifacts to distant museums based on their universal humanity and their murky national ownerships, and deals less with the safety, availability, and preservation cultural objects often gain abroad as apposed to being forgotten, endangered, or abused as they sometimes are in modern countries where they happened to have been found.There is a lot here for the museum specialist, cultural scientist, and student of contemporary governments.

I’m a sucker for a good historical read. Add ancient scoundrels, purloined artefacts, international plunder disagreements that stretch over millennia, and a dose of politics and you’ll find yourself happily engaged in “Keeping their Marbles.”That the treasures of antiquity — Egyptian, Greek, and Roman and beyond — landed in the World’s finest western museums is not in doubt. Yet how did artwork end up so far afield from original locations, and will they make it back to the homeland. Or should it. Discussed are these themes in this engaging book.Ms. Jenkins makes a compelling case for ancient treasures that found their way to the West, by means questionable or legal, to remain housed where they are. Artefacts in museums remain secure, accessible, and studied by museum pilgrims, historians, scholars, and the curious tourist who become acquainted with fine artefacts of antiquity in its wider historical and cultural context.

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