The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

Book Synopsis: Winner of the 2021 Elliott P. Skinner Book Award “If you care about museums and the world, read this book”—New York Times
“Urgent, lucid, and brilliantly enraged…a long-awaited treatise on justice.”—New York Review of Books
“A real game-changer.”—The Economist
“A bombshell.”—Los Angeles Times
The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation, and the decolonization of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the objects of empire we once took for granted. 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 artifacts 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 Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation, and the decolonization of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the objects of empire we once took for granted.