Changes or innovations which threaten `our heritage' arouse great hostility in those who want to preserve the past in its entirity.`The heritage' has become a commodity, a device to sell everything from biscuits to country houses. Fowler skilfully examines the present relationship between the past and the present, analysing the manner in which we mould and interpret the past to fit our current needs. He assesses the influence of our heritage in the last decade of the 20th century, and with a wide range of examples judges the consequences of the increasing pressures of the heritage industry. As well as a diagnosis of where the past is being misused, he provides prescriptions for responsible development, and a thoughtful interpretation of a common past. As well as addressing the needs of the professional involved in the heritage industry he also considers the consumer - all those who visit museums, enjoy a historic site or an art exhibition, or who simply dislike the hijacking of our common heritage by commercial or vested interests.

This innovative collection of essays from an international range of contributors describes various means of preserving, protecting and presenting vital cultural resources within the context of economic development, competing claims of "ownership" of particular cultural resources, modern uses of structures and space, and other aspects of late twentieth-century life.

What do we value about the past? In formulating policies about heritage preservation, that is the inevitable question, and deals not only with economic value but also the intangible value to individuals, communities and society as a whole. This interdisciplinary group of scholars—anthropologists, archaeologists, architects, educators, lawyers, heritage administrators, policy analysts, and consultants—make the first attempt to define and assess heritage values on a local, national and global level. Chapters range from the theoretical to policy frameworks to case studies of heritage practice, written by scholars from eight countries.

This book explores heritage from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines and in doing so provides a distinctive and deeply relevant survey of the field as it is currently researched, understood and practiced around the world.

During the first decades of the 21st century, a critical re-assessment of the reenactment as a form of historical representation has taken place in the disciplines of history, art history and performance studies. Engagement with the reenactment in film and media studies has come almost entirely from the field of documentary studies and has focused almost exclusively on non-fiction, even though reenactments are being employed across fiction and non-fiction film and television genres. Working with an eclectic collection of case studies from Milk, Monster, Boys Don't Cry, and The Battle of Orgreave to CSI and the video of police assaulting Rodney King, this book examines the relationship between the status of theatricality in the reenactment and the ways in which its relationships to reference are performed. Carrigy shows that while the practice of reenactment predates technically reproducible media, and continues to exist in both live and mediated forms, it has been thoroughly transformed through its incorporation within forms of technical media.