The Birth of the Museum

In a series of richly detailed case studies from Britian, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organized their collections, and their visitors.

Tony Bennett is Professor of Cultural Studies and Foundation Director of the Institute for Cultural Policy Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at Griffith University, Australia. He is the author of Formalism and Marxism, Outside Literature and (with Janet Woollacott) Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero.

Introduction; Part I History and Theory; Chapter 1 The Formation of the Museum; Chapter 2 The Exhibitionary Complex; Chapter 3 The Political Rationality of the Museum; Part II Policies and Politics; Chapter 4 Museums and 'The People'; Chapter 5 Out of Which Past?; Chapter 6 Art And Theory; Part III Technologies of Progress; Chapter 7 Museums and Progress; Chapter 8 The Shaping of Things to Come Expo '88; Chapter 9 A Thousand and One Troubles;