At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections,Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues for a deeper examination of these collections within a range of intercultural histories that include alliance, diplomacy, curiosity and enquiry, as well as expropriation and cultural hegemony. As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections,Dividing the Spoils explores how the amassing of objects was understood and governed in British military culture, and considers how objects functioned in museum collections thereafter, suggesting new avenues for sustained investigation in a controversial, contested field.

Henrietta Lidchi is Chief Curator at the National Museum van Wereldculturen, Netherlands, and a Research Fellow at National Museums ScotlandStuart Allan is Keeper of Scottish History and Archaeology at National Museums Scotland

Introduction: dividing the spoils Henrietta Lidchi and Stuart AllanPart I Ideologies of empire and governance1 Spoils of war: custom and practice Edward M. Spiers2 The agency of objects: a contrasting choreography of flags, military booty and skulls from late nineteenth-century Africa John Mack3 Collecting and the trophy John M. MacKenziePart II Military collecting cultures4 Soldiering archaeology: Pitt Rivers and collecting Primitive Warfare Christopher Evans5 The officers mess: an anthropology and history of the military interior Lt Col Charles Kirke (Rtd) and Nicole M. Hartwell6 Seeing Tibet through soldiers eyes: photograph albums in regimental museums Henrietta Lidchi with Rosanna Nicolson7 A regimental culture of collecting Desmond ThomasPart III The afterlives of military collections8 Military histories of Summer Palace objects from China in military museums in the United Kingdom Louise Tythacott9 Indigenising folk art: eighteenth-century powder horns in British military collections Stuart Allan and Henrietta Lidchi10 Community consultation and shaping of the National Army Museums Insight gallery Alastair Massie11 Mementoes of power and conquest: Sikh jewellery in the collection of National Museums Scotland Friederike Voigt Afterword: material reckonings with military histories Henrietta Lidchi Archival sourcesBibliographyIndex