Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums – And Why They Should Stay There

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Description

The fabulous collections housed on the earth’s most famous museums are trophies from an imperial age. Yet the huge crowds that every year discuss with the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, or the Metropolitan in New York have little idea that some of the objects on display were acquired by coercion or theft.

Now the countries from which these treasures came would love 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 remains.

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 latest decades and demonstrates how it’s the guilt and lack of confidence of the museums themselves that have stoked the demands for return. Contrary to the arguments of campaigners, she shows that sending artefacts back is not going to 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 person culture owns culture.

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