Museums in the Wake of Empire

A history of museums entangled in empire and the unfinished work of decolonisation

Museums in the Wake of Empire is the first nation-wide study of how British museums engaged with cultural heritage from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Indigenous Americas between 1945 and 1980. Challenging notions of institutional stagnation, the book uncovers a dynamic, politically charged era in which museum professionals navigated the shifting terrain of professionalisation, decolonisation, imperialism and its afterlives.

Drawing on extensive archival research, newly recorded oral histories and visual culture analysis, the book examines how museum professionals – including curators, conservators, designers and technicians – shaped practices of acquisition, disposal, conservation, documentation, storage and display. Focusing on institutions ranging from national and regional museums to university and independent collections, it reveals how these practices intersected with global political change, disciplinary shifts in anthropology and art history, and the material pressures of imperial collections.
The book’s distinctive contribution lies in its focus on museum labour and the everyday realities of curatorial work. It shows how post-war museum work trialled many practices now associated with progressive museum practice – repatriation, collaborative exhibitions and open storage were practiced decades earlier than commonly assumed. Yet these efforts frequently reproduced colonial structures, revealing the complexities of institutional change and the risks that still haunt contemporary museum practice.