I think there was a, an interest in other cultures that you don't quite get the same today. When we talk about things like diversity and world culture today it's remarkably unspecific. So stop that paternalism was good but there was a sense that we could be transformed. We could be educated, even ordinary people. That's gone. I think museums have become very moralised,. particularly around a kind of the reckoning with history that's going on, particularly in Britain.
Should the British Museum return the Elgin Marbles, taken from the Parthenon in Athens about 200 years ago? What should be the purpose of museums, education or social justice? Listen as Tiffany Jenkins, author of Keeping Their Marbles, discusses these questions and more with EconTalk host Russ Roberts.