Category: Book Reviews

The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience, by Samuel J. Redman. New York: New York University Press, 2022. REVIEWED BY LAUREN FREIJE Museums exist in the context of the world around them. As museums have evolved to take their place as cultural institutions, they have been forced to respond to a multitude of …

Culture: The History of Us from Cave Art to K-Pop, by Martin Puchner. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023.  REVIEWED BY SHANNON SUTTON  Culture: The History of Us from Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner follows the thread of art, religion, and society from paleolithic cave paintings in France to the …

Museum Education for Today’s Audiences: Meeting Expectations with New Models, edited by Jason L Porter and Mary Kay Cunningham. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2022.  REVIEWED BY SYDNEY COYNE  In the aftermath of 2020, museum professionals responded to drastic shifts in the field, reimaging their uses of technology and approaches to social inequities. Museum Education for …

Welcoming Museum Visitors with Unapparent Disabilities, edited by Beth Redmond-Jones. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2024.  REVIEWED BY CHLOE OLIVER First and foremost, I would like to make it clear that I am reviewing this book as not only a museum studies student, but also as a person with multiple unapparent disabilities. I am autistic, …

The Contested Crown: Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico. Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022.  REVIEWED BY KYLIE BARKLEY  During the 16th century, conquistadors stole an Aztec ceremonial feather headdress, now referred to as El Penacho, and brought it back to Europe as part of an effort to colonize modern …

Scotland’s Transnational Heritage: Legacies of Empire and Slavery. Edited by Emma Bond and Michael Morris. Edinburgh University Press, 2023. REVIEWED BY SAMANTHA SHEPHERD Edited by Emma Bond and Michael Morris, the collection of articles featured in Scotland’s Transnational Heritage provide an eye-opening introduction to Scotland’s history as an empirical benefactor and contributor to the Trans-Atlantic …

Storytelling in Museums. Edited by Adina Langer. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield/AAM, 2022. REVIEWED BY IZZY SILVERMAN Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of modern museum work. However, very few museum professionals have examined how it is done and the scope of the practice. In Storytelling in Museums, Adina Langer, an experienced curator and museum professional, brings …

Remembering Enslavement: Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum. Amy E. Potter, Stephen P. Hanna, Derek H. Alderman, Perry L. Carter, Candance Forbes Bright, and David L. Butler. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2022. REVIEWED BY MARY GLISSON In the wake of the brutal public murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests that …

Museums and Social Change: Challenging the Unhelpful Museum. Edited by Adele Chynoweth, Bernadette Lynch, Klaus Petersen, and Sarah Smed. London, England. Routledge, 2020. REVIEWED BY KAYLA KELLPSH Museums and Social Change: Challenging the Unhelpful Museum critiques the museum field through the lens of activism and investigates museums’ potential to promote empowerment and social justice. Calling …

Museums, Modernity and Conflict: Museums and Collections in and of War Since the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Kate Hill. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 2020. REVIEWED BY JASON HOUSLEY Commonly attributed to such varied personages as Winston Churchill, Herman Goring and Missouri Senator George Graham Vest, the aphorism ‘’History is written by the victors’’  pertains to the …