MUSEUMS OF INFLUENCE

Museum lovers will celebrate this intelligent, well-illustrated study of influential--i.e., ground-breaking--museums around the world. Hudson, a ""museum consultant to UNESCO,"" here surveys the development of museums over the past 200 years by identifying 37 pioneering museums in ten countries (six in the US), clumping related museums under useful rubrics--""Temples of Art,"" ""Man, nature and the environment,"" etc. Many of Hudson's choices are familiar--the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in NY, for instance; others, such as the Colonial Williamsburg museum, less so--and delightful. Both a guidebook and a critique, this is a significant contribution to museum lore.