| Description |
1 online resource (xvii, 345 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates) : color illustrations |
| Contents |
Preface -- 1. The Gun That Shoots Twice -- 2. A Theory of Taking -- 3. Necrography -- 4. White Projection -- 5. World War Zero -- 6. Corporate-Militarist Colonialism -- 7. War on Terror -- 8. The Benin-Niger-Soudan Expedition -- 9. The Sacking of Benin City -- 10. Democide -- 11. Iconoclasm -- 12. Looting -- 13. Necrology -- 14. 'The Museum of Weapons, etc.' -- 15. Chronopolitics -- 16. A Declaration of War -- 17. A Negative Moment -- 18. Ten Thousand Unfinished Events -- Afterword: A Decade of Returns -- Appendix I -- Appendix II -- Appendix III -- Appendix IV -- Appendix V -- Notes -- References -- Index |
| Summary |
Walk into any European museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen. Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of metal plaques and sculptures depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections. The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. In The Brutish Museum, Dan Hicks makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism. Publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 280-298) and index |
| Notes |
Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum. His award-winning research focuses on the restitution of African cultural heritage from Euro-American collections, focusing on the place of ideas of cultural whiteness in ongoing histories of colonial violence |
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Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (JSTOR, viewed on September 28, 2023) |
| Subject |
Museums -- Acquisitions -- Moral and ethical aspects
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Museums -- Acquisitions -- Europe, Western -- History
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Museums -- Acquisitions -- Case studies
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Bronzes -- Nigeria -- Benin (Kingdom)
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BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Museum Administration & Museology.
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Bronzes
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Museums -- Acquisitions
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Africa -- Benin (Kingdom)
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Western Europe
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| Genre/Form |
Case studies
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History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781786806833 |
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1786806835 |
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9781786806840 |
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1786806843 |
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9781786806857 |
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1786806851 |
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