ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
The looting of African heritage
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft
ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE: Group of six European men sitting, surrounded by Looted objects from the Benin Punative Raid, 18 February 1897
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums
Edited by Sela Adjei and Yann LeGall, Pluto, £25
EUROPEAN colonisation of Africa was not only about armed conquest, massacres and the exploitation of resources. It was also about the appropriation of spiritual and political symbols. It led to the erasure of a social, cultural, and symbolic world.
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