Gathering key writings from leading thinkers in cultural studies, cultural history, and museum studies, Representing the Nation: A reader explores the role cultural institutions play in creating and shaping our sense of ourselves as a nation.

With an international perspective focusing on the USA, France, Australia, the UK and India, leading figures and authors, including Tony Bennet, Ralph Samuel and Carol Duncan examine the way the past is preserved, represented and consumed as our 'heritage'.

Written in three sections, the book examines:

• strategies involved in creating and sustaining a national culture
• the growth of heritage culture, from the founding of the National Trust in 1895 to the heritage acts of the 1980s
• why it has become important for nations to preserve the past and in whose name is it preserved and displayed
• the historical development of the public museum
• issues and difficulties facing museums today and the competing demands and interests of public funding bodies, tourists and local communities.

For the disciplines of both museum studies and cultural studies this will be vital reading material, and is also perfect as a course reader for a new MA in media and cultural studies.

Despite assertions that we are living in a period of globalization, there has been a resurgence of nationalism and regionalism around the world. This title is intended to discuss the role that cultural institutions play in developing senses of national identity. Leaders from the fields of cultural studies, museum studies, sociology, and cultural history examine ways that national pasts are preserved, presented, and consumed in museums worldwide.

This volume gathers key writings from leading thinkers in cultural studies, cultural history, and museum studies to ask what role cultural institutions play in creating and shaping our sense of ourselves as a nation.

Representing the Nation gathers key writings from leading thinkers in cultural studies, cultural history, and museum studies to ask what role cultural institutions play in creating and shaping our sense of ourselves as a nation. With an international perspective, the contributors investigate whether cultural artifacts can represent all of us equally, as members of a given nation. The book opens with an exploration of the strategies involved in creating and sustaining a national culture while the second part examines the way the past is preserved, represented, and consumed as our heritage. Part three looks at the historical development of the public museum and the book concludes with a section that focuses on issues facing museums today.

Contributors: Richard D. Altick, Arjun Appadurai, Tony Bennett, Carol A. Breckenridge, James Clifford, Philip Dodd, Carol Duncan, David Goodman, Stuart Hall, Robert Hewison, Eric Hobsbawm, Kenneth Hudson, Sharon Macdonald, Colin Mercer, Kevin Robins, Chris Rojek, Robert W. Rydell, Raphael Samuel, Roger Silverstone, Anthony D. Smith, John Urry, Patrick Wright.

Rojek, Robert W. Rydell, Raphael Samuel, Roger Silverstone, Anthony D. Smith, John Urry, Patrick Wright.