When Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin and British ambassador to the Ottoman empire, removed the Parthenon's sculptured friezes to the British Museum, he ignited a controversy that has not abated in a century and a half. Was Elgin a preservationist or an imperialist thief? Should Britain return the marbles to the Greek government? In this short, gracefully written, engaging broadside, Hitchens, a columnist for the Nation , makes a forceful case for full restitution of the sculptures. Lord Elgin, who considered keeping the marbles himself and charging admission to see them, comes off as an enterprising pirate. In a prefatory essay on the Parthenon, Browning, a classics professor at the University of London, traces the building's history as temple to Athena, makeshift Christian church, school for Greek girls, Turkish arms dump.
