Museums and their Development: The European Tradition 1700-1900

by Susan M. Pearce (Editor)

This set gathers together books, pamphlets and articles on all forms of collecting. The volumes have been carefully chosen to illustrate the principle intellectual and political motives which have fed into collecting during its formative 'enlightenment' years from about 1650 to 1870. Each writer represented in the this set is both important in his own right, and in the influence which he had upon contemporaries and successors. They link together in a sequence which shows the successful preoccupations and fields of museums and collecting over this crucial two-hundred year period.
The volumes reprinted here encapsulate something of the history of European museums and particularly attitudes to collecting during the two hundred years which saw the birth and development of almost all the great institutions. All the authors here were significant players in the history of taste, appreciation and understanding. They have left their indelible mark on the museum scene which we see around us, and on the philosophical history of the Western world.

3216 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 1999

About the author

Susan M. Pearce is Professor Emeritus of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. Her research interests have always concentrated on Material Culture, particularly human relationships with the artefact world and the nature and process of collecting. She studied history and archaeology at Oxford University and then worked on the curatorial staff at the National Museums on Merseyside and Exeter City Museum. She joined the Department in 1984 and was appointed Director in 1989, Professor of Museum Studies in 1992, Dean of the Arts Faculty in 1996 and Pro-vice chancellor in 2000. Susan M. Pearce was also President of the Museums Association 1992-1994.