ON LIVING IN AN OLD COUNTRY P

This is the book that put Britain's 'heritage industry' on the map, opening one of the defining cultural and political debates of its time, and showing why conservation was a subject of broad significance, far broader than its professional status might suggest.

In a rich and suggestive series of essays Patrick Wright explores the ways in which history itself has become the most powerful source of contemporary meanings about what Britain is and what it is to be British.

Auteur
Patrick Wright is a writer and broadcaster with an interest in the cultural dimensions of modern life. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed best-selling history books, including The Village that Died for England, Tank (described by Simon Schama as 'a tour de force'), and Iron Curtain, which John le Carre described as 'a work of wit, style and waggish erudition.' He has written for many magazines and newspapers, including the London Review of Books, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Independent, and the Observer, and has made numerous documentaries on cultural themes for both BBC Radio 3 and 4. His television work includes The River, a four-part BBC2 series on the Thames. He is also a Professor at the Institute for Cultural Analysis at Nottingham Trent University, and a fellow of the London Consortium.

Contenu

• Preface to the Oxford University Press edition: Heritage and the Place of Criticism

• 1: Introduction: Everyday Life, Nostalgia and the National Past

• 2: Trafficking in History

• 3: Coming Back to the Shores of Albion: The Secret England of Mary Butts (1890-1937)

• 4: A Blue Plaque for the Labour Movement? Some Political Meanings of the National Past

• 5: Falling Back Together in the Nineteen Eighties: The Continuing Voyage of the Mary Rose

• 6: Moving House in a Welfare State

• 7: The Ghosting of the Inner City

• Afterword: Everyday Life and the Aura of the Modern Past

• Appendix: Sneering at the Theme Parks: an Encounter with the Heritage Industry

• Index