Jonathan Conlin

New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world’s greatest cultural institutions. Its holdings encompass a vast range—including paintings, sculptures, costumes, instruments, and arms and armor—and span millennia, from ancient Egypt and Greece to Islamic art to European Old Masters and modern artists. How did the Met amass this trove, and what do the experiences of the people who bought, restored, catalogued, visited, and watched over these works tell us about the museum?This book is a groundbreaking bottom-up history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exploring both its triumphs and its failings.Jonathan Conlin tells the stories of the people who have shaped the museum—from curators and artists to museumgoers and security guards—and the communities that have made it their own. Highlighting inequalities of wealth, race, and gender, he exposes the hidden costs of the museum’s reliance on “robber barons” and oligarchs, the exclusionary immigration policies that influenced t

Great Economic Thinkers presents an accessible introduction to the lives and works of thirteen of the most influential economists of modern times: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Mar

Universally acknowledged as the father of capitalism, the eighteenth-century Scottish thinker Adam Smith is best known for his “invisible hand” theory. This theory argued in favor of setting individua

"Paris and London have long held a mutual fascination, and never more so than in the period 1750-1914, when they vied to be the world's greatest city. Each city has been the focus of many books, yet J

Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution by natural selection was the greatest scientific discovery of all time. The publication of his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, is normally taken as the poi

Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution by natural selection was the greatest scientific discovery of all time. The publication of his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, is normally taken as the poi

"Paris and London have long held a mutual fascination, and never more so than in the period 1750-1914, when they vied to be the world's greatest city. Each city has been the focus of many books, yet J

Summers at the Vauxhall pleasure garden in London brought diverse entertainments to a diverse public. Picturesque walks and arbors offered a pastoral retreat from the city, while at the same time the

'History is past politics, politics is present history.' Thus observed Edward August Freeman, 19th-century historian and public intellectual. He was an idiosyncratic and imaginative thinker who saw pa

Cross-dressing author, envoy, soldier and spy Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's unusual career fascinated his contemporaries and continues to attract historians, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers, image ma