First published in 1987, The Heritage Industry sets out to protect the present and the future of life in Britain from their most dangerous enemy: a creeping takeover by the past. The author sets today's obsession with yesterday in the context of a climate of social and political decline. The economic uncertainties and cultural convulsions of post-war life have made the past seem a pleasanter and safer place. But how true is that image of the past, and whose past is it, anyway? Hewison questions the way institutions like the National Trust are helping to create a past that never was. While the real economy crumbles, a new force is taking over: the Heritage Industry, a movement dedicated to turning the British Isles into one vast open-air museum. This book will be of interest to students of history, art and cultural studies.

Robert Hewison