Is it time to turn the British Museum into the world’s great lending library? | Tim Adams

With a new government will come grown-up conversations about our colonial history’s part in the acquiring of artefacts

It’s liberating to sense how a government whose primary concern is not fighting culture wars might return a grown-up freedom to public debate. A discussion at the British Museum last week, “Who owns the past?”, could not, in this sense, have been more timely. The debate, which marked the arrival at the museum of Nicholas Cullinan, its new director, featured contributions from Mary Beard, David Olusoga, Rory Stewart and Munira Mirza about the issues faced by museums as they incorporate discussion of colonial history into their collections, and examine questions of ownership.

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