The Brutish Museums

Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. His award-winning research focuses on decolonisation in art and culture, and academic disciplines, and on the role of cultural whiteness in ongoing histories of colonial violence and dispossession.

New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020 'Essential' - Sunday Times 'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books 'A real game-changer'- Economist Walk into any Western museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen. Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of metal plaques and sculptures depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections. The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. In The Brutish Museums, Dan Hicks makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism.

The book that changed the conversation on the contemporary museum

List of PlatesPrefacePreface to the Paperback Edition1. The Gun That Shoots Twice2. A Theory of Taking3. Necrography4. White Projection5. World War Zero6. Corporate-Militarist Colonialism7. War on Terror8. The Benin-Niger-Soudan Expedition9. The Sacking of Benin City10. Democide11. Iconoclasm12. Looting13. Necrology14. 'The Museum of Weapons, etc.'15. Chronopolitics16. A Declaration of War17. A Negative Moment18. Ten Thousand Unfinished EventsAfterword: A Decade of ReturnsAppendix 1: Provisional List of the Worldwide Locations Of Benin Plaques Looted in 1897Appendix 2: Provenance of Benin Objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (the 'First Collection')Appendix 3: Sources of Benin Objects in the Former Pitt-Rivers Museum, Farnham (the 'Second Collection')Appendix 4: Current Location of Benin Objects Previously in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Farnham (the 'Second Collection')Appendix 5: A Provisional List of Museums, Galleries and Collections that May Currently Hold Objects Looted from Benin City in 1897NotesReferencesIndex