On the historical context of museums, their collections, and the objects that form them

This collection of essays explores the stories that can be told by and about objects and those who choose to collect them.

Introduction / Jennifer Walklate -- 2. Romancing the Stones: earth science objects as material culture / Hannah-Lee Chalk -- 3. What do we know about what we know? The museum 'register' as museum object / Geoffrey N. Swinney -- 4.

The book is based on the understanding of collecting practice, rather than the collections themselves.

Do men and women collect differently? How do we use objects to construct our identity? This book breaks new ground in its analysis of our relationship to the material world.

Frontcover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Part One: Travels and Travellers -- 1 Introduction: Life Before Departure -- 2 Athens, Aegina and the Morea -- 3 Asia Minor, Sicily, Albania and Italy -- 4 ...

Explores the philosophies, approaches, and practices of museums that acquire and hold the material culture of the ancient, medieval, and post-medieval past, in light of new perspectives in the last two decades of the ways the past can be ...

Includes materials on South Wales.