In the past, museums glorified wealth and validated authority. But today, pressure groups frequently mobilize either to force their own perspective upon museum walls, or to prevent opposing opinions from being expressed. Exhibition controversies are similar to "tagged genes": They are markers for critical conditions, but not the cause of them.

In Displays of Power, Steven C. Dubin examines the most controversial exhibitions of the 1990s. These include shows about ethnicity, slavery, Freud, the Old West, and the dropping of the atomic bomb by the Enola Gay. Some of these exhibitions challenged standard narratives, while others were faulted for failing to do so.

Drawing directly upon interviews with many key combatants: museum administrators, community activists, curators, and scholars, Displays of Power authoritatively analyzes these episodes of America struggling to redefine itself in the late twentieth century.