Cultural Heritage Politics in China

摘要

If we view heritage as "the contemporary use of the past," then - almost by definition - heritage is a political concept. In that sense, almost any book dealing with heritage should also be dealing with heritage politics. And indeed, the scholarship on heritage politics is already large and growing rapidly. In China, heritage development has been booming for over a decade, and while there has been considerable work already on the politics of heritage in China, we still await a comprehensive treatment of the most significant political issues raised by heritage development in China. Simply by gathering a broad array of case studies and conceptual discussions of China's heritage politics, this volume goes some way in addressing this need. Cultural Heritage Politics in China takes as its point of departure the dominance of UNESCO's World Heritage listing in China's heritage development strategies, and the fact that this dominance has been underwritten by the Chinese leadership's enthusiastic embrace of heritage for both patriotic and economic development purposes. That this embrace has emerged after a revolutionary period of cultural and historical iconoclasm, followed by several decades of perhaps even more destructive modernization and urbanization, makes the story of China's heritage politics that much more compelling. This volume offers a snapshot of the current and diverse state of cultural heritage scholarship in China. While the case studies presented illustrate the expansive nature of this field, they also barely scratch the surface of this vast and burgeoning industry in contemporary China.