The Parthenon Marbles

The Case for Reunification

Christopher Hitchens, Charalamabos Bouras, Robert Browning , Nadine Gordimer

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English

Verso
29 April 2025

Art & Architecture; The Arts: General & Reference; History of Art & Design Styles; Archaeology

Why the British Museum should hand back the Elgin Marbles

The Parthenon Marbles (formerly known as the Elgin Marbles), designed and executed by Pheidias to adorn the Parthenon, are perhaps the greatest of all classical sculptures. In 1801, Lord Elgin, then ambassador to the Turkish government, had chunks of the frieze sawn off and shipped to England, where they were subsequently seized by Parliament and sold to the British Museum to help pay off his debts.

This scandal, exacerbated by the inept handling of the sculptures by their self-appointed guardians, remains unresolved to this day. In his fierce, eloquent account of a shameful piece of British imperial history, Christopher Hitchens makes the moral, artistic, legal and political case for re-unifying the Parthenon frieze in Athens.

The opening of the New Acropolis Museum emphatically trumps the British Museum’s long-standing (if always questionable) objection that there is nowhere in Athens to house the Parthenon Marbles. With contributions by Nadine Gordimer and Professor Charalambos Bouras, The Parthenon Marbles will surely end all arguments about where these great treasures belong, and help bring a two-centuries-old disgrace to a just conclusion.

By: Christopher Hitchens
Preface by: Nadine Gordimer
Contributions by: Charalamabos Bouras, Robert Browning
Imprint: Verso
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 12mm
Weight: 159g
ISBN: 9781786633958
ISBN 10: 1786633957
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 29 April 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was the author a number of polemics from geopolitics to religion. A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly and Slate, he was named one of the world's ""Top 100 Public Intellectuals"" by Foreign Policy and Prospect.

Reviews for The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification

Hitchens is a grand rhetorician, . . .As with Voltaire, his scornful laughter is a powerful weapon. * Sunday Times [God is Not Great] * Quite possibly the most brilliant journalist of his generation * Daily Mail [The Missionary Position] * A trenchant, learned, iconoclastic and splendidly witty commentator on public life -- John Banville * [Mortality] * He has no equal in contemporary Anglo American letters * Financial Times [Arguably] * An exceptional political polemicist * Prospect [Love, Poverty and War] *