Combining the history of ideas, institutions and architecture, this study shows how the museum both reflected and shaped the place of art in German culture from the late-18th to the early-20th century. On a broader level, it explains the origin and character of the museum's role in modern culture. [an] elegant study ... Museums in the German Art World impresses most by its lucidity and concision. In fewer than 200 pages, Sheehan traces the history of a major public institution in half a dozen or so German states over more than a century. Cultural, intellectual, and institutional histories are woven together with sparkling case studies of significant buildings ... Perhaps the most significant message of this story is that museums make their own history - they are monumental acts of reflection that bear witness not only to current fashions, but also to the modern era's changing consciousness of its past.