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

She has consulted widely in academia and museums on cultural policy, most recently advising scholars and practitioners at University of Oslo, the Norwegian Theatres and Orchestras, and the National Touring Network for Performing Arts. Her writing credits include BBC Culture, Apollo, The Independent, The Art Newspaper, The Guardian and Sp

William Suddaby said MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS. 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 l. "I’m a sucker for a good historical read" according to Anthony Narcisso. 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 treasur. "Five Stars" according to Batia Cohen. Great summary

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 remainIn Keeping Their Marbles, Tiffany Jenkins tells the bloody story of how western museums came to acquire these objects. 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. 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. 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. The fabulous collection

To say that it is controversial is a severe understatement. That's what makes this book a must-read." --James Cuno, art historian, author, and President and CEO of the J. Jenkins has produced a courageous and well-argued book; the howls you hear in the background are those of the contrition crowd." --The Wall Street Journal "Jenkins does an excellent job of portraying the extreme reactions elicited by repatriation conversations." --Nature"A full-throated argument against the repatriation of arguably stolen art and artifacts. She argues that we are asking too much of our museums, that we want them to serve narrow ideological purposes of cultural and political identity. There is much to agree with in this argument, and of course, much with which to disagree. Paul Getty Trust "Ms. "Anyone who thinks that issues of cultural property and "repatriation" are simple should read this book. And in the time of IS, it is an urgen