Plunder?: How Museums Got Their Treasures

A provocative reassessment of a popular narrative that connects museums, the antiquities trade, and theft.

In this thought—provoking new work, historian Justin M. Jacobs challenges the widely accepted belief that much of Western museums’ treasures were acquired by imperialist plunder and theft. The account reexamines the allegedly immoral provenance of Western collections, advocating for a nuanced understanding of how artifacts reached Western shores. Jacobs examines the perspectives of C...