The museum of other people

Abstract

This is a history of the ways in which foreign and prehistoric peoples were represented in museums of anthropology, with their displays of arts and artifacts, their dioramas, their special exhibitions, and their arrays of skulls and skeletons. Originally created as colonial enterprises, what is the purpose of these places today? What should they do with the items in their custodianship? And how can they help us to understand and appreciate other cultures? Informed by a lifetime of research and scholarship, this subtle and original work tackles painful questions about race, colonialism, difference, and cultural appropriation. The result is a must-read for anyone concerned with the coexistence of different modes of life. -- Provided by publisher.

Contents

The museum of other people -- Faraway people. Inventing the museum of other people -- Civilised and uncivilised : the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum -- German museums and the cultural history of humanity -- The rise and fall of the Musée de l'Homme -- Interlude : an American in Paris -- Native Americans, manifest destiny and American exceptionalism. The Smithsonian Institution goes west : or, how the west was spun -- Franz Boas challenges the Smithsonian -- Harvard's Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology -- The World's Columbian Exposition, 1893 -- Divesting and reinventing the museum. Bones of contention -- Trophies of empire, African court art and the slave trade -- But is it art? -- National museums and identity museums -- Show and tell -- The Cosmopolitan Museum.