The End of the Museum

""Kevin Coffee makes a convincing case of what museums traditionally have been and often still are, repositories of and serving the interest of elite culture and opposes it with what museums should be, in a dialectic relationship with the societies they serve, in particular underrepresented and subaltern parts of that societies. A must-read for every museum-practitioner that wants to live up to the promise of the museum having an important social function."" ~ Tom van der Molen, curator, Amsterdam Museum ""For those individuals who have devoted their working life to museums, this book may be painful. The discomfort emanates from Coffee’s highly-informed analysis of the museum world’s birthright, grounded as it is in imperialism, extraction, elitism and, more recently, the commercialization of culture. Coffee is a veteran scholar/practitioner and rigorously challenges the traditional museum practices and assumptions underlying this legacy, knowing full well that the continuation of museums will require unprecedented courage, vulnerability and foresight. This book is for all those who remain committed to museum work while also experiencing the intensifying uncertainty. Coffee demonstrates that the future of museums is unclear and there is much to do as a result."" ~ Robert R. Janes, former museum director, author, editor, and Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester (UK).