A Place That Matters Yet: John Gubbins's MuseumAfrica in the Postcolonial World Unavailable

In her opening paragraphs, Sara Byala leads the reader on a tour of a museum that few people would bother to fit into their itineraries today. Dusty, outdated, confusing: this, we learn, is Johannesburg's MuseumAfrica. Then, she quickly asserts that the book's primary goal is to demonstrate the importance of this place, despite its seeming obsolescence. A Place That Matters Yet: John Gubbins's MuseumAfrica in the Postcolonial World contributes to a significant body of scholarship on museums in South Africa (Murray and Witz 2014, Dubin 2006, Coombes 2003, Rassool and Prosalendis 2001, Rankin and Hamilton 1999). Furthermore, the book contains insights for all historians of museums, as it traces the many different functions of MuseumAfrica since it was founded as the Africana Museum in 1935. In particular, Byala offers an example of how to study other museums often dismissed as outdated or irrelevant. These...