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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.
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.
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In 1849, James Silk Buckingham, a prominent English social reformer, published a plan for a model town. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
In 1849, James Silk Buckingham, a prominent English social reformer, published a plan for a model town. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This volume gathers together articles Tony Bennett published earlier on in various journals.
Bennett is interested in the formation of museums in the 19th century and later on in the 20th century, and on the educational and intructional intentions and objectives as translated in their arragements by the 'inventors' of museums. Bennett therefore focuses on the conceptual side of museums rather than on their reception by their audience.
In particular, Bennett addresses the theoretical and practical connections between museums, fairs, and international exhibitions.
Because the various chapters are written from a position within cultural studies, this book should appeal to a wide readership, and should still be relevant, although all articles have been written in the 1980s and 1990s.
It can be at times a difficult read, but it is also thought-provoking and inspiring.
Bennett is interested in the formation of museums in the 19th century and later on in the 20th century, and on the educational and intructional intentions and objectives as translated in their arragements by the 'inventors' of museums. Bennett therefore focuses on the conceptual side of museums rather than on their reception by their audience.
In particular, Bennett addresses the theoretical and practical connections between museums, fairs, and international exhibitions.
Because the various chapters are written from a position within cultural studies, this book should appeal to a wide readership, and should still be relevant, although all articles have been written in the 1980s and 1990s.
It can be at times a difficult read, but it is also thought-provoking and inspiring.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Dense but satisfying
25 Feb 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Bennett's language may be theory dense, but it is rarely unclear while outlining the social and cultural trends which gave "birth" to the museum in its many formats, historical, anthropological, art, etc. This book is really a collection of essays previously written by Bennett on the museum and combined here; I would recommend not reading it all at once as it can be a bit much. However, it clearly looks at the historical and social reasons for how the museum came to be, particularly in its nineteenth century origins. It also relates museums to other social institutions: fairs and cabinets of curiosities as precursors, the 19th c. developments in prisons and the advent of expositions as contemporaneous to the birth of the museum, and amusement parks as a mix of the fair and the museum. Definitely located in the field of cultural studies.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
More to it than theory-speak
7 Feb 2008
Format:Paperback
It's true (as other reviewers have complained) that Bennett's analysis can be a little too slick at times. But even if the Foucault-inspired arguments are overstated, this book still offers interesting discussion of specific historical examples. If you take a "social control" theory too literally, this sort of analysis will become wrongheaded. But Bennett and other researchers in this vein are asking serious questions: how do the ways we order and represent knowledge (as museums are designed to do) shape what we can know?
23 of 47 people found the following review helpful
Rediculously complex
10 Jun 2004
Format:Paperback
As a museum professional with over twelve years experience designing and producing exhibitions for a wide variety of subject matter i was immediately interested in Tony Bennet's book. The summary on the back mapped out, in plain english, a book that detailed the social and political forces that resulted in and shaped the modern concept of the museum.
However once i had purchase the book and actually tried to read it I found myself drowning in Foucault -ian language that ultimately obscures any observations that Mr Bennet may have had. This book is only for those with a college degree in philosophy,as it seems more focused on showing us all how clever Mr Bennet is than actually dealing with the subject matter. Completely inaccessible to all but the most acedemic minded scholars
However once i had purchase the book and actually tried to read it I found myself drowning in Foucault -ian language that ultimately obscures any observations that Mr Bennet may have had. This book is only for those with a college degree in philosophy,as it seems more focused on showing us all how clever Mr Bennet is than actually dealing with the subject matter. Completely inaccessible to all but the most acedemic minded scholars
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