Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World » (First Edition)

Sharon Waxman is a former culture correspondent for The New York Times and holds a master’s degree in Middle East studies from Oxford University. She covered Middle Eastern and European politics and culture for ten years before joining The Washington Post and then The New York Times to report on Hollywood and other cultural news. She is the author of Rebels on the Backlot, and the CEO and founder of The Wrap News.

“Fast-paced and compelling . . . Waxman has an array of wondrous tales to tell . . . Considerable, admirable, and totally absorbing.”—The Boston Globe

For the past two centuries, the West has plundered the treasures of the ancient world to fill its great museums, but in recent years the countries where ancient civilizations originated have begun to push back, taking museums to court, prosecuting curators, and threatening to force the return of these priceless objects.

Sharon Waxman brings us inside this high-stakes conflict, from the great cities of the West to Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, as these countries face down the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She shows how the actions of a few determined and implacable characters may yet strip these museums of some of their most cherished treasures.

For readers who are fascinated by antiquity, who love to frequent museums, and who believe in the value of cultural exchange, Loot opens a new window on an enduring conflict.

The Washington Post - Roger Atwood

…absorbing and well-researched …Although her views are often unnervingly one-sided (her sympathies lean toward letting museums keep their contested holdings), she gives all actors in this bitterly antagonistic drama a hearing and writes with flair and an earnest sense of inquiry.