Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World [Paperback]

Sharon Waxman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 1, 2009

“Fast-paced and compelling . . . Waxman has an array of wondrous tales to tell . . . Considerable, admirable, and totally absorbing.”—The Boston Globe

For the past two centuries, the West has plundered the treasures of the ancient world to fill its great museums, but in recent years the countries where ancient civilizations originated have begun to push back, taking museums to court, prosecuting curators, and threatening to force the return of these priceless objects.

Sharon Waxman brings us inside this high-stakes conflict, from the great cities of the West to Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, as these countries face down the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She shows how the actions of a few determined and implacable characters may yet strip these museums of some of their most cherished treasures.

For readers who are fascinated by antiquity, who love to frequent museums, and who believe in the value of cultural exchange, Loot opens a new window on an enduring conflict.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. After covering Hollywood's cutting-edge directors (Rebels on the Backlot), former New York Times correspondent Waxman embarks on a grand tour of some of the world's finest museums—the Met, the Louvre, the British Museum, the Getty—and the countries from which some of their most famous antiquities were illicitly taken. Skillfully blending history and reportage, Waxman traces the stories of treasures like the Elgin Marbles, then jumps into the debate over whether they should be restored to their countries of origin. She finds no easy answers: while acknowledging the dubious means by which European and American museums acquired many antiquities, she concedes that the governments clamoring for their return don't always have adequate plans for their maintenance. (Turkey compelled the Met to hand over the famous Lydian Hoard, only to have its masterpiece stolen.) Waxman's account is animated by interviews with museum curators, accused smugglers and government officials, putting a human spin on the complex cultural politics before arriving at a middle ground that strives for international collaboration in preserving a broad, global heritage. 8-page color insert, 20 b&w photos. (Nov. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Sharon Waxman raises many challenging questions in this important, well-researched study about the conflict over classical antiquities and the breach of international regulations by Western countries. Compelling and fast-paced, the story spans countries (mostly Western) and centuries. Despite Waxman's generous narrative, a few critics thought her perspective uneven, as she favors allowing Western museums to keep their purloined treasures. Similarly, although she gives everyone equal voice—from curators to archaeologists to journalists uncovering these crimes—the museum directors and curators fare relatively badly. Despite these criticisms, Lootoffers intelligent analysis about a difficult dilemma with no easy answer.
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; First Edition edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805090886
• ISBN-13: 978-0805090888
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Impeccably Researched Analysis of a Controversial Issue November 18, 2008

By S. McGee TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Whose art is it, anyway?

That is the question at the heart of this carefully-crafted and insightful analysis of the ongoing battle of the ownership of antiquities from Greek, Egyptian and other ancient societies. Sharon Waxman has done an admirable job of covering the key personalities and issues, never allowing herself to be distracted and accomplishing the impossible -- taking a passionate view of the importance of these objects to art and history without losing sight that their is no simple answer to that fundamental question of their ownership.

Waxman profiles both sides of the debate, the activists and government officials in countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Italy who are lobbying for the return of everything from the Elgin Marbles (hacked off the Acropolis some two centuries ago) to unique Etruscan artifacts likely looted and smuggled overseas within the last decade. There are no heroes in this saga. Museum directors continue to duck the question of how some of the objects on display ended up in their galleries and argue that their collections form part of the broader "human heritage" that only institutions in giant Western cities from New York to Berlin can adequately care for and display. On the other side are those pressing for the return of these objects so that they can be displayed as part of the heritage of the country where they were created and, millennia later, rediscovered.

But... What happens when objects are repatriated? Waxman takes the reader to the site of nearly-empty museums in Luxor, Egypt and Antalya, Turkey, filled with precious objects but devoid of local visitors. (Even the son of Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities honcho and chief agitator for the return of the Rosetta Stone, among other items, is more interested in Islam and the country's more immediate and, to many, relevant history than he is in the idolatrous Pharoahs and the temples to Horus or Hathor that they left behind them.) She also tells of one Turkish archaeologist who is facing trial for the theft of priceless gold objects from the "Lydian Hoard", finally returned by New York's Met to Turkey amidst great fanfare about a decade ago. Is returning the objects to countries where they can't be protected, cared for or displayed the right strategy, especially if those objects really have no connection to the society inhabiting the country today? (Today's Turks, for instance, aren't descended from the Greek, Phrygian, Lydian, Lycian or other societies that once inhabited their nation; they arrived from further east centuries later.) But, just as the reader becomes sympathetic to the arguments of museum curators, Waxman switches gears to show the ruthlessness with which the latter built their collections and the intellectual arrogance of their arguments. Nor, as she shows in connection with the Elgin Marbles, have they alwasy cared for their objects in their care.

Ultimately, there are no easy answers and Waxman wisely avoids the trap of joining one camp or the other. In the final few pages, she advocates a new paradigm that may prove utopian but at least offers those of us who may be tempted to join the public debate a more reasonable middle way.

The only flaw in this ambitious but thorough and lively overview of the ongoing battle is Waxman's failure to address, except in passing, the role of private collectors in the antiquities trade. Public collections have gradually adopted a much more restrictive approach to purchasing antiquities that don't have a clear provenance or history, and are at least engaging in this debate with the countries of origin. But private collectors have tended to be less scrupulous and, by their nature, their activities are less visible. Waxman notes that the high prices these collectors are still willing to pay for black market objects are likely to encourage archaelogical looting; it would have been valuable and interesting to have explored this with some of these collectors or their art advisors.

Anyone interested in learning more about this looting should turn to the work co-written by Peter Watson & Cecilia TodeschiniThe Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums If you're more interested in the debate over how the past is represented and who owns it, The Future of the Past by Alexander Stille is excellent and beautifully written.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars museum issues 101 May 22, 2009

By D. Woollard

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I wanted to love this book but ended up merely liking it. For those without a basic knowledge of the arguments in the museum acquisition and antiquities world this is a good basic book outlining many of the key issues. Waxman is at her best when drawing character sketches. At times she seemed to be fumbling for a point to the whole book and her end conclusions don't seem to be informed much by any of her experiences. It felt like a series of newspaper pieces, well-researched, accurate but devoid of the sort of passion and intensity that keeps a book like this entertaining for the reader.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A jumble of reporting and history, but excellent questions are asked May 20, 2009

By las cosas

Format:Hardcover

I read this book when it first appeared, and find that over the months I am mellowing in my opinion of it. The author is a reporter who writes about Hollywood. It shows. The premise of the book is that museums in the US and Europe continue to purchase works of art that have been looted from other cultures and illegally purchased by those museums. This is not a simple subject since virtually all conquests and wars throughout the centuries have included pillaging by the winners, hauling the loot back to the conqueror's home land. We are supposedly above such things now, and the countries where the works originated should, the author argues, have a right to determine whether those works can leave the country.

The problem is in the endless nuances of how such laws should be implemented, and Waxman is of little help in trying to articulate and determine how those decisions should be made. Instead she bludgeons us with various chapters each focusing on a hero (trying to recover loot) or villain (museum personnel trying to keep the loot). Of course even the title provides a not-very-subtle clue as to Waxman's sympathies.

But my big problem with this book is that it reads like a collection of newspaper articles. Lots of interviews, virtually no historical research other than a tangent on Napoleon's grabing Egyptian artifacts for what would become the Louvre. And the chapter on the Getty and its travails is filled with who-slept-with-whom at the museum. Not terribly relevant to anything but the author's day job as far as I could tell.

But while this book provides little help in delineating possible global solutions to this issue, or even in framing the issues in a nuanced manner, she does ask the questions, and several months later, I find myself thinking of this subject each time I enter a museum. What should a museum purchase, and under what circumstances should it return a work to another country?