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E-book
Author Jacobs, Justin, 1980- author.

Title The compensations of plunder : how China lost its treasures / Justin M. Jacobs
Published Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2020

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Description 1 online resource (vii, 348 pages) : illustrations, maps
Series Silk Roads
Silk roads (Chicago, Ill.)
Contents Sahibs in the desert -- Accumulating culture -- Gentlemen of empire -- The priceless nation -- Rise of the apprentices -- Foreign devils begone -- Conclusion
Summary From the 1790s until World War I, Western museums filled their shelves with art and antiquities from around the world. These objects are now widely seen as "stolen" or "plundered" from their countries of origin, and demands for their return grow louder by the day. In this pathbreaking study, Justin M. Jacobs challenges the longstanding assumption that coercion, corruption, and deceit were chiefly responsible for the exodus of cultural treasures from northwestern China. Based upon a close analysis of previously neglected archival sources in English, French, and Chinese, Jacobs finds that many local elites in China acquiesced to the removal of art and antiquities abroad, understanding their trade as currency for a cosmopolitan elite. In the decades after the 1911 Revolution, however, these antiquities went from being "diplomatic capital" to disputed icons of the emerging nation-state. A new generation of Chinese scholars began to criminalize the prior activities of archaeologists, erasing all memory of the pragmatic barter relationship that once existed in China. Recovering the voices of those local officials, scholars, and laborers who shaped the global trade in antiquities, The Compensations of Plunder brings historical grounding to a highly contentious topic in modern Chinese history and informs heated debates over cultural restitution throughout the world
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on July 10, 2020)
Subject Excavations (Archaeology) -- China, Northwest -- History -- 20th century
Excavations (Archaeology) -- China -- Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu -- History -- 20th century
Archaeologists -- Europe
Lost works of art -- China, Northwest -- History -- 20th century
Lost works of art -- China -- Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu -- History -- 20th century
Archaeology and state -- China -- History -- 20th century
HISTORY -- General.
Antiquities
Archaeologists
Archaeology and state
Excavations (Archaeology)
Lost works of art
SUBJECT China, Northwest -- Antiquities
Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China) -- Antiquities
Subject China
China -- Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu
Europe
Northwest China
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 022671215X
9780226712154