Overview

Europe’s national museums have since their creation been at the centre of on-going nation making processes. National museums negotiate conflicts and contradictions and entrain the community sufficiently to obtain the support of scientists and art connoisseurs, citizens and taxpayers, policy makers, domestic and foreign visitors alike. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 assess the national museum as a manifestation of cultural and political desires, rather than that a straightforward representation of the historical facts of a nation. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 examines the degree to which national museums have created models and representations of nations, their past, present and future, and proceeds to assess the consequences of such attempts. Revealing how different types of nations and states – former empires, monarchies, republics, pre-modern, modern or post-imperial entities – deploy and prioritise different types of museums (based on art, archaeology, culture and ethnography) in their making, this book constitutes the first comprehensive and comparative perspective on national museums in Europe and their intricate relationship to the making of nations and states.

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9780815346746

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Each essay is thoroughly researched, and empirical data supports many findings. In sum, this book represents a unique contribution to the field of museum studies and is an important addition to the study of European cultural history. Summing Up: Recommended. - A. Verplaetse, Harvard University, CHOICE Review

Author Information

Peter Aronsson is a historian and held a chair in Cultural Heritage and Uses of the Past at Linköping University. He has co-edited National Museums: New Studies from around the World (Routledge, 2011) and Performing Nordic Heritage (2013). Gabriella Elgenius is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg and associate member of Nuffield College and the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Symbols of Nations and Nationalism: Celebrating Nationhood (2011).

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