Why museums are returning cultural treasures

This book offers a lively personal account of the process of repatriation, following the trail of four objects as they were created, collected, and ultimately returned to their sources. These stories reveal a dramatic process that involves not merely obeying the law, but negotiating the blurry lines between identity and morality, spirituality and politics.

Renowned scholar David Hurst Thomas’ book investigates the historical development of archaeology and how it came to appropriate Native American culture and identity. The book swirls around one of the most contested skeletons in recent memory — the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man — to argue that the central struggle between archaeologists and Native Americans is most basically about power and control.

Historian Samuel J. Redman has written an invaluable story about museums and how they became so enthralled with the human body. Hint: ideas of “race” and the realities of racism play central characters.

In 1897, explorer Robert E. Peary brought six Inuit to New York where they could be live “specimens” for anthropologists at the American Museum of Natural History. Four die soon after their arrival, and the body of one is stolen for scientific study. This tragic story is unforgettable and haunting.

The struggle over human remains extends far beyond Native America. This chilling history of the 9/11 victims of the World Trade Center is necessary reading, and will make you ask hard questions about those with power over human remains.

A surprising number of famous and infamous Americans have been exhumed from their graves—and returned back into the earth. This fascinatingly macabre history will keep you turning the pages and wondering it means to rest in peace.