A noble madness The dark side of collecting from antiquity to now

Review by Booklist Review

As contemporary museums contend with the looting and theft that have frequently undergirded the construction of public and private collections of art and artifacts, historian Delbourgo's book deals with a different "dark side of collecting"--that of how lusting after and loving things have been perceived within various cultures around the world at different points in time (though most are from post--seventeenth century Euro-America). Freud, who understood collections to reveal a hidden inner self and even diagnosed collecting as "a substitute for sexual gratification," casts a long shadow on modern understandings of collecting that Delbourgo seeks to redress. He places Freud's view alongside many other perspectives on collecting: Ming Dynasty commentators who had a word to describe collecting as an obsessive sickness, libertines of the European enlightenment who sought pleasure in things, colonial-era naturalists who gathered specimens in their hunt for knowledge, and those today expecting a return on investment. But, like Freud, Delbourgo ultimately concludes that throughout history and the world over, "by expressing that love" for things, collectors "are themselves."

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This rollicking survey from historian Delbourgo (Collecting the World) traces the archetype of the collector as it twists and turns throughout the ages. The collector is an "extraordinarily diagnostic figure" in "our collective cultural imagination," Delbourgo asserts, mapping the collector's evolving image over time from looter to hoarder and everything in between (including, in some feistier periods, idolater and libertine). He shows that people have pretty consistently thought there was something a little strange about these figures, and readers won't be disinclined to disagree, as Delbourgo spotlights an art collector who paid $20,000 to have sex with an artist on film, an obsessive 19th-century heir who wrote, "I WISH TO OWN ONE COPY OF EVERY BOOK IN THE WORLD!!!," and the vicissitudes of Jeffrey Dahmer's bone altar. Delbourgo traces the more "noble" aspects of collecting all the way back to the Ming dynasty, where collectors were described as possessing a complex combination of compulsion and sophistication. He also astutely ties collecting into larger cultural movements, noting that collections often generate opposition, from Protestants critiquing Catholic icons to Red Guards smashing Ming vases. Delbourgo has a great eye for crackling vintage quotes ("One cannot befriend a man without obsessions, for he lacks deep emotion," one 17th-century Chinese essayist writes). Readers will enjoy this whip-smart history. (Aug.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Loving things. Historian Delbourgo examines the changing role of the collector in our cultural imagination, from ancient looter to modern-day hoarder. Motivated by a desire for wealth, knowledge, prestige, and, not least, order, collectors have amassed objects such as artworks, scientific specimens, religious relics, books, and gems. Delbourgo traverses time and place to portray collectors' roles: In premodern China, a collector was seen as a person of superior sophistication; in Korea, collecting was a path to attaining status. Some artifacts--religious relics, for example, or African art--have been sought for their spiritual or magical power. Romantics saw collecting as an expression of one's inner self, an idea that persists, even as collecting has been associated with colonialism, looting, and profit. Collecting, Delbourgo asserts, also has been associated with mental illness. Fictional collectors, such as Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, behave maniacally; Freud diagnosed the urge to collect as an expression of suppressed neuroses. Art collectors have been depicted variously as gloomy, gothic recluses, as figures associated with danger and unabated passion, and as libertines, while naturalists--Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Alexander von Humboldt, to name a few--are more likely celebrated for their dogged pursuit of scientific specimens. Delbourgo casts a wide net to offer biographies of collectors such as Rudolf II, a Holy Roman emperor who aspired to assemble the world in miniature; Marie Antoinette, known as the "trinket queen"; Alfred Kinsey, who collected data about sex; and female collectors, notably, Gertrude Stein, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Peggy Guggenheim, motivated by a pursuit of beauty and "nourishment of the soul." In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association included hoarding disorder in its updated manual. As Delbourgo amply reveals, however, the distinction between the ardent collector and the pathological hoarder is hardly clear. A well-researched history of the passion to possess. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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