Museums are purging their collections of looted treasures. Can they also get something in return? And what does it mean to be a museum in the 21st century? (Part 3 of an updated series originally published in 2023.)

• SOURCES:
  • Patricia Allan, museum consultant, former curator of world cultures for the Glasgow Museums.
  • Andrea Bayer, deputy director for collections and administration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
  • Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
  • Victor Ehikhamenor, Nigerian writer and artist.
  • Patty Gerstenblith, professor emeritus of law at DePaul University College of Law.
  • Tom Wilkening, professor of economics at the University of Melbourne.

• RESOURCES:
  • "After Seizures, the Met Sets a Plan to Scour Collections for Looted Art," by Robin Pogrebin and Graham Bowley (The New York Times, 2023).
  • "Nigeria Benin Bronzes: Buhari Declaration 'Blindsides' Museum Officials," by Barnaby Phillips (B.B.C., 2023).
  • "Shared Stewardship and Ethical Returns Policy," by the Smithsonian Ethical Returns Working Group (2022).
  • "Protecting Antiquities: A Role for Long-Term Leases?" by Michael Kremer and Tom Wilkening (Working Paper, 2015).

• EXTRAS:
  • “Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back Is Hard,” series by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

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The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan talks about confidence, luck, and why it takes 35 drafts to get to the finish line.

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The world’s great museums are full of art and artifacts that were plundered during an era when plunder was the norm. Now there’s a push to return these works to their rightful owners. Sounds simple, right? It's not. (Part 2 of an updated series originally published in 2023.)

• SOURCES:
  • Matthew Bogdanos, assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
  • Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum.
  • Victor Ehikhamenor, Nigerian writer and artist.
  • David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic.
  • Dan Hicks, professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford and curator of world archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum.
  • Bénédicte Savoy, professor of art history at the Technical University in Berlin.

• RESOURCES:
  • "These Looted Treasures Are Home. What Now?," by Alex Marshall (New York Times, 2025).
  • "France's Long-Awaited Restitution Policy Is Finally Here," by Vincent Noce (The Art Newspaper, 2023).
  • Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, by Bénédicte Savoy (2022).
  • "Who Benefits When Western Museums Return Looted Art?" by David Frum (The Atlantic, 2022).
  • "Museums in England and Wales to Gain Powers to Dispose of Objects on Moral Grounds," by Dalya Alberge (The Guardian, 2022).
  • The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution, by Dan Hicks (2020).
  • "The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics," by Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr (2018).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Can a Museum Be the Conscience of a Nation?," by Freakonomics Radio (2025).
  • "The Hidden Side of the Art Market," by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

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When he joined the Del Fuegos, his big brother’s band, all Warren knew how to play was a record player. Things went great for a while — and then it all fell apart. So how did he wind up writing definitive books on Springsteen and Tom Petty?

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How did a freshly looted Egyptian antiquity end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Why did it take Kim Kardashian to crack the case? And how much of what you see in any museum is stolen? (Part 1 of “Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back Is Hard,” first published in 2023.)

• SOURCES:
  • Andrea Bayer, deputy director of collections and administration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  • Matthew Bogdanos, assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
  • Patty Gerstenblith, professor emeritus of law at DePaul University College of Law.
  • Jim Marrone, staff data scientist at StubHub.
  • Victoria Reed, Bettina Burr chair for provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art Displaying Objects That Belong to Native American Tribes?" by Kathleen Sharp (ProPublica, 2023).
  • "More Than 1,000 Artifacts in Metropolitan Museum of Art Catalog Linked to Alleged Looting and Trafficking Figures," by Spencer Woodman, Malia Politzer, Delphine Reuter, and Namrata Sharma (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2023).
  • "The Art Market 2022: An Art Basel & UBS Report," by Clare McAndrew (2022).
  • "The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side," by Ariel Sabar (The Atlantic, 2021).
  • "Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala Photo Helped Solve Looted Gold Egyptian Coffin Case," by Samantha Ibrahim (New York Post, 2021).
  • "Tracking and Disrupting the Illicit Antiquities Trade With Open-Source Data," by Matthew Sargent, James V. Marrone, Alexandra Evans, Bilyana Lilly, Erik Nemeth, and Stephen Dalzell (RAND Corporation, 2020).
  • "Provenience and Provenance Intersecting with International Law in the Market for Antiquities," by Patty G. Gerstenblith (North Carolina Journal of International Law, 2020).

• EXTRAS:
  • "The Hidden Side of the Art Market," series by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

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Angela Buchdahl was the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi, and now she is among the most influential rabbis in the world. She and Stephen Dubner talk about boundary-crossing, the aftermath of October 7, and whether you can be a good Jew without believing in God.

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Former S.E.C. chair Gary Gensler has had a front-row seat to numerous financial booms and busts. How does he feel about America’s massive bet on A.I.? “Something has to give.”

• SOURCES:
  • Gary Gensler, professor of the practice of global economics, management, and finance at M.I.T.

• RESOURCES:
  • This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (2011).

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Harlan Coben doesn’t think so. The mega-best-selling author talks suburbia, impostor syndrome, and what he learned from his college friend David Foster Wallace.

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