The Birth of the Museum (Culture

Show and Tell: The Birth of the Museum is an engaging work which explores the evolution and cultural function of the modern museum. Author Tony Bennett's invigorating study enriches and challenges our understanding of the museum, placing it at the center of modern relations of culture and government.

Bennett argues that the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction but as a reformary of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place. Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, he sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture.

In a series of richly detailed case studies from Britain, Australia and North America, Bennett investigates how 19th and 20th century museums, fairs, and exhibitions have organized their collections and their visitors. Highly unconventional and imaginitive in its theory, Show and Tell: The Birth of the Museum provides a distinctive perspective on the contemporary museum.