Ecomuseums ─ A Sense of Place

Davis (museology, Newcastle U., Britain) set out to debunk the notion of an ecomuseum, but by the end of the first edition, published in 1999 by Leicester University Press, he acknowledged that such institutions were in existence and operation, though he still considered them an ephemeral phenomenon in the world of museums. Here he shows how wrong he was, restructuring the book to account for the acceptance and spread of the ecomuseum ideal in countries around the world. He covers the historical and philosophical background; ecomuseums in France, continental Europe, the anglophone world, Africa and Central and South America, and the Middle East and Asia; and re-evaluating the ecomuseum. In the first addition, all known ecomuseums were listed in the appendix. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Peter Davis is Professor of Museology at Newcastle University, UKand Guest Professor of Museology at Museion, Goteborg University, Sweden. His research interests include the history of museums, the history of natural history and environmentalism, and ecomuseums. He is the author of several books, including Museums and the Natural Environment (1996) and (with Christine Jackson) Sir William Jardine: a life in natural history (2001), also published by Continuum.