[In the following review of The Elgin Marbles, Lubbock discusses the long-standing controversy and public debate surrounding the return of the Elgin Marbles, and other cultural artifacts, to their country of origin.]

Of all the lost causes for which the liberal left and this journal have ever provided a home, the campaign to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens must seem the ultimate as well the most forlorn. The launch of [The Elgin Marbles] at St James's Piccadilly was attended by two former editors and many present and former writers for the New Statesman including Christopher Hitchens himself, several eminent professors, some with and some without snowy white beards, and Eric Heffer MP—all of them burning with the injustice of the situation.

The book itself explains and argues their case with impeccable clarity and all the information one might desire. It is this: Lord Elgin, while British Ambassador to the Ottoman court after the Battle of the Nile, organised the removal, between 1801 and 1803, of many of the sculptured friezes and figures from the already severely damaged Parthenon, shipped them back to England and sold them to the British Museum in 1816 for £35,000 (about £1 million in today's money). The sculptures formed part of sequences and groups that possessed ‘a unity of action and representation’ and were intrinsic to the significance of this great national monument.

Today the sculptures are arbitrarily split, roughly half and half, between London and Athens, making it impossible for anyone to enjoy a unified impression of the whole, three-quarters of which survive. Commonsense alone calls for their reassembly either in London or in Athens; and Athens, where they could be housed in a museum next to the Parthenon, is the obviously appropriate place. They could not and should not be returned to the building itself because of the heavily polluted atmosphere of the city and the consequent condition of the building, already ruined by an explosion in 1687 and further damaged by Elgin's removal of the marbles themselves.

Putting aside the ethics of Elgin's actions, there seems a prima facie case on aesthetic and historical grounds for reuniting the sculptures in their original site. On the evidence of television polls and phone-in programmes the British public seems to accept this case. The present British government and the British Museum do not, and show no signs of being persuaded. Why?

Perhaps their strongest argument is that the return of the Elgin Marbles would open the floodgates for demands for the return of ‘cultural property’ of all kinds looted and pillaged from former colonial territories and elsewhere, which form an important part of the collections of the great western universal museums. On TV last year, the Director of the British Museum, Sir David Wilson, went so far as to compare the return of the Marbles to Hitler burning books; ‘cultural fascism’ as he called it. In fact this danger, if danger it is, is much exaggerated and crucial objects such as Benin bronze sculptures, the Hungarian royal crown and the Mandalay Regalia have already been returned by the BM and similar institutions without the predicted consequences.

So why does someone like Sir David, as cultivated, liberal and probably just as attached to lost causes as his opponents, prove so stubborn on this issue? As one of his severest critics I would like to suggest an answer based on my experience a year ago in successfully persuading the Association of Art Historians to pass a resolution supporting the principle of returning key items of cultural property to their homelands—it remains the only professional association in the field to have taken such action.

My original wording, based on a UNESCO resolution, had bluntly supported the principle of returning objects removed during conquest or colonial occupation on the demand of the country or people of origin. The Executive Committee, quite as liberal as Sir David if not more so, showed all the signs of the Dementia Elginosis from which he suffers. Nonetheless, imaginative redrafting on both sides achieved unanimous assent. Most important was the condition that both sides should mutually agree upon the central importance of the objects to a people's cultural heritage.

To some this may seem just a form of words, one moreover that weakens the case by giving the holding country the power of veto. But they possess that power already in the fact of possession. I believe that the wording strengthens the case as well as removing from the Sir Davids of this world, who are neither looters, nor closet imperialists, the implied blame for the vandalism of their predecessors. I begin to suspect that the British campaigners, in common with other liberals and leftists, do not actually wish to win, because to win would be to lose—to lose their ‘lost cause’ altogether. But, as in all diplomacy, of which cultural diplomacy is a part, the only test of real will is the readiness to enter into real negotiations.