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

New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020'Essential' – Sunday Times'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books'A real game-changer'– EconomistWalk 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 Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation 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 collections of empire we once took for granted.