Museum Rhetoric

Building Civic Identity in National Space

“M. Elizabeth Weiser crosses more national and disciplinary borders than any previous scholar in the search for unifying analyses of the identity work of museums. She investigates a wide array of material and a multidimensional set of productive dilemmas. The result is a complex, innovative, and yet clear and elegantly presented analysis of the work done by and through museums in placing their orchestrated and authorized rhetoric in dialogue with the experiences of visiting citizens.”

—Peter Aronsson, coeditor of National Museums and Nation-Building in Europe, 1750-2010: Mobilization and Legitimacy, Continuity and Change