Since it was first published in 2006, Riches, Rivals and Radicals has
been the go-to text for introductory museum studies courses. It is also
of great value to professionals as well as museum lovers who want to
learn the stories behind how and why these institutions have evolved
since the day the first mastodon bones, royal portraits and botanical
specimens entered their halls. For this third edition, Marjorie
Schwarzer has mined new resources, previously unavailable archives and
contemporary trends to provide a fresh look at the challenges and
innovations that have shaped museums in the United States. Schwarzer
argues that museums are fundamentally optimistic institutions. They
build and preserve some of the nation's most extraordinary architecture.
They showcase the beauty and promise of new scientific discoveries,
historical breakthroughs and artistic creation. They provide places of
inspiration and repose. At the same time, museums have succeeded in
exposing some of the nation's most painful legacies - racism, inequity,
violence - as they strive to be places for healing and reckoning. This
too, one could argue, is an act of optimism, for it expresses the hope
that museum visitors will gain empathy and understanding from the
evidence of others' struggles. Schwarzer shows us how museums are rooted
in a contentious history tied to social, technological and economic
trends and ultimately changing ideas of what it means to be a citizen.
Along the way we meet some notorious and eccentric characters including
business tycoons, architects, collectors, designers, politicians,
political activists and progressive educators, all of whom have exerted
their influence on what is a complex yet nonetheless enduring
institution. Major additions since the last edition include material on
digital curation, emergent exhibitions about civil rights, immersive
museum environments, continuing efforts to diversify the field, how
museums' role in our increasingly digital society, and a new foreword by
American Alliance of Museums President and CEO Laura L. Lott. Museums
new to this edition include the National Museum of African American
History and Culture, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and
the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Beautifully written and lavishly
illustrated, the third edition of this accessible, award-winning book
brings the reader up to date on the stories behind the people and events
that have transformed America's museums from their beginnings into
today's vibrant cultural institutions.
