The Styrofoam Mummy

Coming July 2027! Preorder from Amazon here.

Teeming with fakers and forgers, tomb raiders and con artists, the world of antiquities trading is a strange and fascinating place. I’ve spent years digging through secret archives, reading court documents, and interviewing insiders to bring you six stories of audacious antiquities crimes – some of them still unspooling – in The Styrofoam Mummy: Tales from the Dark Side of the Antiquities Market. The dealers and smugglers run from Peru to Fifth Avenue, while the artifacts include both looted masterpieces and ludicrous fakes: Chinese “chicken cups,” Roman keychains, even pieces of old sandals billed as Biblical relics... along with a supposedly mummified and yet somehow still erect phallus. The book reveals the outlandish lengths fraudsters go to secure wealth and status, makes clear the real cost of their actions, and demonstrates the failure of every legal safeguard meant to protect both the living and the dead.

Art Heist

Available through MacMillan, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite independent bookstore.

A fun, illustrated guide to the true stories behind the world’s most daring art heists - as well as the fate of art during conflict and the theft and repatriation of sacred artifacts. For kids, teens, and any adults who love a good tale!

Kirkus: “An intriguing glimpse at the underbelly of the art world.”

Smashing Statues

Available through Norton, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, or your favorite independent bookstore.

An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? And who gets to decide which ones should stay up and which should come down?

In Smashing Statues, I trace the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, starting with the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom atop the US Capitol, and explore the surprising motivations behind such contemporary flashpoints as the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol. Combining gripping narratives with legal, political, and historical analysis, the book aims to give readers the context they need to consider the fundamental question: Whose voices must be heard and whose pain must remain private?

Interviews

“Interview: The Historian Scrutinizing Our Idea of Monuments,” New Yorker, March 3, 2022.

The Today Show, discussing protests over controversial monuments, July 7, 2020.

“Interview: What Does It Mean to Tear Down a Statue?” New York Times, June 11, 2020.

Possession

Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors was named an NPR Best Book of 2016.

Praise for Possession

“Riveting... fascinating... treasure trove of a book... absorbing and bizarre.”—Wall Street Journal

“This slim volume is just bursting with read-them-to-a-friend anecdotes of collectors who’d stop at nothing. . . . Art is passion; Thompson understands. . . . The marvelous Possession offers a savvy history of passion as politics, a delightful collection of collectors and a love of art that might just send you to a museum.”—NPR

“Timely and immensely enjoyable; . . . a cavalcade of history’s most ardent lovers of the antique. . . . Thompson’s brilliantly told tales create a sparkling tableau that invites further reflection on the politics of even the most solipsistic collectors.”— The Atlantic