The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History

by David Lowenthal (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1997

  $45.81

  Heritage includes family history, architecture, antiques, old masters, endangered plants and animals, treasure trove and folklore. Critics accuse the burgeoning heritage industry of perverting history for profit. Yet, heritage denotes our inescapable dependence on the past. What we inherit, individually and collectively, is integral to our being. Without memory and tradition we could not function in the present nor plan for the future. But we distill these legacies into icons of identity. This book assembles man's attitudes towards what he imagines to be his past, from anchorites and anoraks, Berlin and Biloxi, conkers and castles, dog breeds and dental fillings, through folklore and fax machines.

• New

  Paperback
  2011

  $31.89

  Heritage has burgeoned over the past quarter of a century from a small elite preoccupation into a major popular crusade. Everything from Disneyland to the Holocaust Museum, from the Balkan wars to the Northern Irish troubles, from Elvis memorabilia to the Elgin Marbles bears the marks of the cult of heritage. In this acclaimed 1998 book David Lowenthal explains the rise of this obsession with the past and examines its power for both good and evil.