The British Public and the British Museum - (Nineteenth-Century and Neo-Victorian Cultures) by Jordan Kistler (Hardcover)

About the Book

A radical reinstatement of the public in the history of the formation of the 'modern' museum.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Kistler challenges many conventional ideas of museum history, demonstrating that public audiences, including the working class, were as impactful in the shaping of the British Museum as were scholars and politicians. This magisterial drawing together of social history, literature, archival studies, museum studies, and the history of science challenges long-held beliefs about the development of the British Museum as a public institution. In telling the story of the wider public and the museum, Kistler shines a light on 19th-century attitudes towards class, education, imperialism, and public spaces that still haunt us today.--Janine Rogers, Mount Allison University