What's best about this book is its comprehensive view of the process of reimagining historic house museums and the many voices it offers to the reader. Used thoughtfully and diligently, it poses many ways to make sure that historic house museums meet the challenges that face them, reinventing themselves for new audiences and renewed futures.

The Public Historian

Turino and van Balgooy have translated their acclaimed one-day workshop, Reimagining Historic House Museums, into aprovocative and eminently actionable volume that should be required reading anyone in or out of the field who cares about the future of our country's historic places.

Sean Sawyer, Ph.D., Washburn & Susan Oberwager President, The Olana Partnership

At times practical, at times thought provoking, Reimagining Historic House Museums: New Approaches and Proven Solutions is both a checklist for the basic operation of your museum, and a bundle of wildly divergent ideas to take your organization to the next level. Editors Turino and Van Balgooy set out on an ambitious journey, bringing the expertise of multiple scholars and practitioners in the field together in one volume. The result is an utterly readable book that addresses fundamentals and essentials, audiences and different approaches, methods and imaginations. Together with the list of resources after each of its 26 chapters, in combination with the extensive bibliography at the end of the book, Reimagining Historic House Museums may well make this volume the go-to resource par excellence, for staff, board and volunteers in historic house museums, at every level of their career or engagement.

Remko W.T. Jansonius, Deputy Director, Collections and Curatorial Affairs, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, FL, Board Secretary, DEMHIST (ICOM's International Committee for Historic House Museums)

Can historic house museums, long a staple of sanitized pasts, be repurposed for new audiences? Could they even ‘enliven participatory democracy?’ Turino and van Balgooy, in Reimagining Historic House Museums, make the case that they already have. Both prescription and provocation, this guide is especially for readers who know that educating visitors sometimes means re-educating boards.

Seth C. Bruggeman, Director, Temple University Center for Public History

Every chapter of Reimagining Historic House Museums pulls from the best in the field. From the chapter authors to the research, writings, and model sites, each facet of running a historic house and making it relevant to the community it serves is well covered. This title will become indispensable as a resource for any sized museum.

Andrea Malcomb, Director, Molly Brown House Museum