Le Musée, Une Histoire Mondiale Iii : À La Conquête Du Monde, 1850-2020

This third and final volume devoted to the history of museums opens on their long golden century, which began in 1851 with the first Universal Exhibition in London. Twice interrupted by the world wars, its rise to power reached its peak in the second half of the 20th century.

Today, there are some one hundred thousand museums worldwide, and they have found their home in the United States. They have colonized, to very unequal degrees, all the inhabited continents, and have opened up to all manifestations of human creativity, the best and the worst. Their collections are growing, their surfaces are expanding, and their architecture is abandoning the old model of the palace and the temple for new forms.

But a pandemic has arisen that has brought this boom to a halt. It is not yet known whether this is temporary or permanent. Nevertheless, museums will long remain at the centre of our urban landscapes, places par excellence of high culture, sociability and the updating of identities.