Behold the&10;sleazy logic of museums: plunder dressed up as charity, conservation, and care.The idealized&10;Western museum, as typified by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British&10;Museum, and the Museum of Natural History, has remained much the same for over&10;a century: a uniquely rarified public space of cool stone, providing an&10;experience of leisure and education for the general public while carefully&10;tending fragile artifacts from distant lands. As questions about representation&10;and ethics have increasingly arisen, these institutions have proclaimed their&10;interest in diversity and responsible conservation, asserting both their&10;adaptability and their immovably essential role in a flourishing and culturally&10;rich society.With&160;Decolonize&10;Museums, Shimrit Lee punctures this fantasy, tracing the essentially&10;colonial origins of the concept of the museum. White Europeans' atrocities were&10;reimagined through narratives of benign curiosity and abundant respect for the&10;occupied or annihilated culture, and these racist narratives, Lee argues,&10;remain integral to the authority exercised by museums today.