The British Public and the British Museum : Shaping and Sharing Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century (Nineteenth-century and Neo-victorian Cultures)

Kistler, Jordan

Edinburgh University Press（2026/05発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 288 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781399523752

Full Description

This book is a timely intervention in the history of museums in Britain. BP's ongoing sponsorship of the British Museum, the appointment of George Osborne as a trustee and the Museum's continued resistance to the repatriation of holdings such as the Parthenon Marbles and the Benin Bronzes have brought questions of the Museum's funding, leadership and right to the objects in its collection to increased public attention. The book reveals this is not a recent 'woke' agenda but rather part of a long history of public resistance and activism enacted through the British Museum. It presents a cultural history of the nineteenth-century British Museum, departing from traditional institutional histories by centring public perception of the museum's purpose and its uses in society.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Reconstructing Public Opinion

1. Categorising the Museum

2. Working-Class Access and the Sunday Question

3. Constructing Truth in the Museum

4. Reading the Museum: Serial Display

5. A National Museum

6. Appropriating the Ancient Past

Conclusion: Museums Today

Bibliography