| Smithsonian Stories: Chronicle of a Golden Age, 1964-1984 Contributor(s): Dillon, Wilton S. (Author), Sullivan, Robert D. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1412854598 ISBN-13: 9781412854597 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $171.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: January 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Art | Museum Studies - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - Business & Economics | Museum Administration And Museology |
| Dewey: 069.09 |
| LCCN: 2013044945 |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.9" W x 9.8" (1.50 lbs) 408 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Why is the Smithsonian more than the "Nation's Attic?" Or more than a museum complex? As Wilton S. Dillon shows, the Smithsonian came to be the institution we know today under the twenty-year leadership of "Sun King" S. Dillon Ripley. Ripley aspired to reinvent the Smithsonian as a great university--with museums. Although little understood by the public at large, it began as a basic research center. The Smithsonian remains a key contributor to the world of higher learning and functions diplomatically as the ministry of culture for the United States. Dillon provides backstage insights into Ripley's quest for the wholeness of knowledge. He describes how he inspired its role as a "theater of ideas as well as artifacts." Under his tutelage, the National Mall became a playground for world intelligentsia, an "intellectual free trade zone" in the shadow of the nation's political capital. Dillon reminds us that interdisciplinary, international Smithsonian symposia foreshadowed twenty-first-century issues and trends. His descriptions of the educational rewards of balancing tradition with the avant-garde are inspiring. As Dillon reminds us, Ripley's twenty-year reign may well have helped spark the waning embers of the Enlightenment. |
Contributor Bio(s): Sullivan, Robert D.: - Robert D. Sullivan has over forty years of museum experience. From 1990-2006, he served as the associate director for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Dillon, Wilton S.: -Wilton S. Dillon is former president of the Institute for Intercultural Studies (founded by Margaret Mead) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and senior scholar emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution. His four Smithsonian decades drew upon earlier experience as a soldier, journalist, college teacher, foundation executive, and science diplomat. He is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University. Additionally, he was honored by the French government with the Chevalier des arts et des lettres, in part, for his book Gifts and Nations. |
