From the opening of The Louvre to the launch of Tate Modern and beyond, this accessible and succinct publication traces the development of the museum concept – encompassing curatorial, scholarly, political and cultural spheres – and its evolving role within society.

In the first section, Schubert looks at the complex history of the museum in specific cities at critical moments, for instance New York between 1930 and 1950 as the Metropolitan Museum of Art expanded and the Museum of Modern Art was founded. The second section focuses on the success and unprecedented development of the museum in the 1980s and 1990s in Europe and the United States, highlighting the need for cities and institutions to revise their programmes in response to a surge of interest in the arts.

The final section looks at the museum’s predicament nearly a decade after The Curator’s Egg was originally published in 2000, exploring the museum's evolution in a post-9/11 environment.