Berghahn Books - Celebrating International Day for Monuments & Sites, also known as World Heritage Day!

Celebrated yearly on April 18th, the International Day for Monuments and Sites, also known as World Heritage Day, encourages local communities and individuals throughout the world to consider the importance of cultural heritage to their lives and to promote awareness of its diversity and vulnerability and the efforts required to protect and conserve it. For information on this year’s theme please visit ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) webpage www.icomos.org.

In joining the celebration, Berghahn is excited to present relevant Heritage Studies titles and Journals, as well as highlight our Explorations in Heritage Studies series.

Explorations in Heritage Studies Series

Explorations in Heritage Studies responds directly to the rapid growth of heritage scholarship and recognizes the trans-disciplinary nature of research in this area, as reflected in the wide-ranging fields, such as archaeology, geography, anthropology and ethnology, digital heritage, heritage management, conservation theory, physical science, architecture, history, tourism and planning.

POLARIZED PASTS
Heritage and Belonging in Times of Political Polarization
Edited by Elisabeth Niklasson

When questions of belonging enter the forefront of political debates, so too does heritage. This volume draws critical voices from archaeology, anthropology and the classics into a conversation about political uses of the past in times of radical right populism.

Read Introduction

CALLING ON THE COMMUNITY
Understanding Participation in the Heritage Sector, an Interactive Governance Perspective
Edited by Jeroen Rodenberg, Pieter Wagenaar, and Gert-Jan Burgers

There is a call in Heritage Studies to democratize heritage practices and place local communities at the forefront; heritage plays an important role in identity formation, and therefore in social inclusion and exclusion.

Read Introduction

OPEN ACCESS!

MANAGING SACRALITIES
Competing and Converging Claims of Religious Heritage
Edited by Ernst van den Hemel, Oscar Salemink, and Irene Stengs

Case studies from Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom present an analysis of the paradoxes and challenges that arise when religious sites are transformed into heritage.

Read FULL TEXT

HERITAGE, GENTRIFICATION AND RESISTANCE IN THE NEOLIBERAL CITY
Edited by Feras Hammami, Daniel Jewesbury, and Chiara Valli

Authors explore a variety of attempts to interrupt and interrogate urban restructuring, and to imagine alternative forms of urban organization, produced by diverse coalitions of resisting groups and individuals.

Read Introduction

For a full selections of volumes within the series please visit series webpage

Featured Titles

HERITAGE UNDER SOCIALISM
Preservation in Eastern and Central Europe, 1945–1991
Edited by Eszter Gantner, Corinne Geering, and Paul Vickers

How was heritage understood and implemented in European socialist states after World War II? By exploring national and regional specificities within the broader context of internationalization, this volume enriches the conceptual, methodological and empirical scope of heritage studies through a series of fascinating case studies.

Read Introduction

WORLD HERITAGE CRAZE IN CHINA
Universal Discourse, National Culture, and Local Memory
Haiming Yan

“World Heritage Craze in China makes a unique contribution to Chinese heritage preservation, demonstrating the application and impact of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and the present state of the art in this area… This monograph challenges the reader and the profession to reconsider Chinese cultural heritage preservation, and its characteristics and relations with politics and society in China.” • Antiquity

Read Introduction

LIFE WITH DURHAM CATHEDRAL
A Laboratory of Community, Experience and Building
Arran J. Calvert

An ethnographic account of daily life in Durham Cathedral, this book examines the processes of negotiation and change between a community and their cathedral.

Read Introduction
Read Blog post Arran J. Calvert on Life with Durham Cathedral

THE CAMINO DE SANTIAGO
Curating the Pilgrimage as Heritage and Tourism
Michael Murray

This book relates these sentiments to the curatorship of the Camino de Santiago that comprises a lattice of European pilgrimage itineraries converging at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. The detailed analysis focuses on the management of pilgrimage settings as heritage and tourism linked to the shrine of Saint James and gives particular attention to investment guidelines, land use planning regulations, environmental stewardship, information dissemination and museology.

Read Introduction

UNLOCKING THE LOVE-LOCK
The History and Heritage of a Contemporary Custom
Ceri Houlbrook

“This is an important first detailed examination of the love-lock practice and provides an important benchmark for any further study, collection, and observation of the development of the custom.” • Folklore

Explores the worldwide popularity of the love-lock as a ritual token of love and commitment by considering its history, symbolism, and heritage.

Read Introduction
Read blog post by Ceri Houlbrook, Love In The Time of Covid

MEMORIALIZING THE GDR
Monuments and Memory after 1989
Anna Saunders

“All in all, Saunders makes a firm contribution to the field by showing how monuments can be important sites for democratic engagement around which multiple narratives can converge. Her wide-ranging monograph provides a needed update of the classic question about the relationship between monuments and memory and is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the memory of the GDR.” • H-Soz-Kult

Read Introduction
Read blog post by Anna Saunders, Why Monuments Still Have a Future

2020 UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON CENTER FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOOK PRIZE WINNER

PRESERVATION AND PLACE
Historic Preservation by and of LGBTQ Communities in the United States
Edited by Katherine Crawford-Lackey and Megan E. Springate

“…a critical volume for educators, students, practitioners, and activists interested in preserving LGBTQ history at the local, state, and national levels. It is well worth securing this volume in addition to accessing the online NPS study; the editors have expertly assembled an engaging mix of essays here by leading practitioners in the field. Preservation and Place now sets the standard for the emerging field of LGBTQ historic preservation and it further represents an important foundation for the queer history practices to come in the new decade.” • History News

Read Preface

CROSSROADS OF HERITAGE AND RELIGION
Legacy and Sustainability of World-Heritage-Site Moravian Christiansfeld
Edited by Tine Damsholt, Tine Reeh, Christina Petterson, and Marie Riegels Melchior

Looking at the crossroads between heritage and religion through the case study of Moravian Christiansfeld, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2015, this anthology reaches back to the eighteenth century when the church settlement was founded, examines its legacy within Danish culture and modern society, and brings this history into the present and the ongoing heritagization processes.

Read Introduction

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND MUSEUMS
Mediating Difficult Heritage
Edited by Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert, Alexandra Bounia, and Antigone Heraclidou

Emerging technologies in museums have the potential to reveal unheard or silenced stories, challenge preconceptions, encourage emotional responses, introduce the unexpected, and overall provide alternative experiences. By examining varied theoretical approaches and case studies, authors demonstrate how “awkward”, contested, and rarely discussed subjects and stories are treated – or can be potentially treated – in a museum setting with the use of the latest technology.

Read Introduction
Read Open Access Chapter 9

BORN A SLAVE, DIED A PIONEER
Nathan Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend
Seth Mallios

Few people in the history of the United States embody ideals of the American Dream more than Nathan Harrison. His is a story with prominent themes of overcoming staggering obstacles, forging something-from-nothing, and evincing gritty perseverance. In a lifetime of hard-won progress, Harrison survived the horrors of slavery in the Antebellum South, endured the mania of the California Gold Rush, and prospered in the rugged chaos of the Wild West.

Read Introduction
Listen to an episode of The Archaeology Show: “Born a Slave, Died a Pioneer”, the Nathan Harrison Story with Dr. Seth Mallios

OPEN ACCESS!

TRANSCENDING THE NOSTALGIC
Landscapes of Postindustrial Europe beyond Representation
Edited by George S. Jaramillo and Juliane Tomann

Even as the global economy of the twenty-first century continues its dramatic and unpredictable transformations, the landscapes it leaves in its wake bear the indelible marks of their industrial past. Whether in the form of abandoned physical structures, displaced populations, or ecological impacts, they persist in memory and lived experience across the developed world. This collection explores the affective and “more-than-representational” dimensions of post-industrial landscapes, including narratives, practices, social formations, and other phenomena.

Read FULL TEXT