The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions

(Paperback, Main)

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'A formidable work' - Nigel Barley, author of The Innocent Anthropologist

'Should be required reading' - Richard Lambert, Financial Times

'A magnificent, moving survey' - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, TLS

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.

Reviews

'A formidable work ... one whose want has been much felt' - Nigel Barley, former Assistant Keeper at the British Museum and author

'A magnificent, moving survey ... Kuper's case is strong and his voice - erudite and elegiac - commands respect' - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

'A provocative look at questions of ethnography, ownership and restitution ... should be required reading for the trustees of big museums everywhere' - Richard Lambert

'Material for thought ... Nothing beats reading this book, without bias but with a sort of peaceful objectivity, sometimes polemical' - Olivier Gabet, Director of the Department of Art at the Louvre

'This is the must-read book for anyone interested in the history of ethnographic museums and how the urban public of Western industrial nations learned about the myriad "other people" living on our planet. Kuper applies his monumental knowledge of the history of anthropological scholarship to lay out his vision of how the ethnographic museums were born, thrived, and eventually moved to the margins of public imagination. Yet, as he rightly claims, big ethnographic museums face new beginnings in the 21st century - ones defined by creative exhibits, ethical stewardship, and modern education about lives and cultures of world's "other people"' - Igor Krupnik, Chair of Anthropology and Curator of Circumpolar Ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Author Bio

Adam Kuper was most recently Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and a visiting professor at Boston University. A Fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Kuper has appeared on BBC TV and radio and reviewed regularly for the LRB and TLS, among others.