B OO K R E V I E W : E X H I B I T I N G T H E P A S T Jocelyn Chey – TAASA Review June 2014
UNLOCK THIS ARTICLE
This article was originally found in the June 2014 edition of TAASA Review (Volume 23, Issue 2, Page 28).
The full article is available for free to TAASA Members.
Registeror Login
Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China Kirk Denton University of Hawai’i Press, 2014 RRP US$59.00, hard cover, 350 pages “Not another museum!†is a familiar refrain from someone participating in a tourist visit to China, only equalled by the alternative, “Not another temple!†A recent survey of Chinese museums listed a total of 2,200 across the country and undoubtedly most people have spent time in several, some with first-class displays and excellent explanatory material and some with boring poorly-lit glass case displays and information only in Chinese language text. Back in Cultural Revolution years, I was once asked to take a group of Australian jockeys round the National History Museum (don’t ask me why, it is a long story).
The material was organised in what was then standard Maoist/Marxist sequence, beginning with Primitive Society, then moving through Slave Society to Feudal Society.
It was hard to hold my charges’ attention through rooms of oracle bones and clay pots...