Walk into any European museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objectsare all stolen. Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of brass plaques and carved ivory tusks depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of BeninCity, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections. The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. In The Brutish Museums, Dan Hicks makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism.

This 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year paints a rich, vivid portrait of heartbreak and happiness, recounting the story of Ruby Lennox, a narrator who will leave no stone unturned in her account of family life above a pet shop in England. "A poignant and beautifully wrought portrait of a young girl's growth".--"Seattle Times".

With contributions from leading scholars and detailed catalog entries that interpret the spells and painted scenes, this fascinating and important work affords a greater understanding of ancient Egyptian belief systems and poignantly reveals the hopes and fears about the world beyond death.