Looting of African heritage: a powerful new book explores the damage done by colonial theft

By Francoise Vergès, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Sarah Parker Remond Centre, Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL

European colonisation of Africa was not only about armed conquest, massacres and the exploitation of resources. It was also about the appropriation of spiritual and political symbols. It led to the erasure of a social, cultural, symbolic world.

A 2024 book, Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums, adds to the growing literature on the history of the colonial looting of African art and heritage and the issue of restitution, reappropriation and return. Published…

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