Research Catalog

Title

The birth of the museum : history, theory, politics / Tony Bennett.

Author

Bennett, Tony, 1947-

Publication

London ; New York : Routledge, 1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 278 p. : ill., map; 25 cm.

Summary

"In a series of richly detailed studies from Britain, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how 19th and 20th century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organised their collections and their visitors. Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, Bennett sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture. Using Foucaltian perspectives The Birth of the Museum explores how the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction, but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place. This invigorating study enriches and challenges the understanding of the museum, and places it at the centre of modern relations between culture and government. For students of museum, cultural and sociology studies, this will be an asset to their reading list"--Publisher's description.

Series Statement

Culture : policies and politics

Uniform Title

Culture (London, England)

Subjects

• Heimatmuseum Amöneburg
• Museums > Management > Social aspects
• Politics and culture
• Museum techniques
• Museums > Philosophy

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-269) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

The formation of the museum -- The exhibition complex -- The political rationality of the museum -- Museums and 'the people' -- Out of which past? -- Art and theory : the politics of the invisible -- Museums and progress : narrative, ideology, performance -- The shaping of things to come : Expo '88 -- A thousand and one troubles : Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

ISBN

• 0415053870
• 0415053889 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^^94012936^

OCLC

• 30624669
• SCSB-9951835

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library