In Their Own Words

Tourism today is recognized as the largest and fastest-growing industry in the world, capable of producing positive social and economic transformations, especially in developing countries. Yet for UNESCO, it works in conjunction with World Heritage sites for a far more ambitious goal: to produce "peace in the minds of men" by creating a new, global identity.

Anthropologist and former tour operator Michael Di Giovine draws on ethnographic fieldwork, close policy analysis, and professional experiences in Southeast Asia and Europe to provide a detailed examination of UNESCO's unusual effort to harness globalization and cultural diversity for the purpose of creating peace. He convincingly argues that UNESCO's designations are not impotent political performances that lead to the commercialization of local monuments, but instead are the building blocks of a new social system he calls the "heritage-scape"--an imaginative re-ordering of the world that knows no geopolitical boundaries but exists in the individual "minds of men."

Written for social scientists and heritage and tourism professionals, The Heritage-scape is an insightful, detailed, and expansive look at UNESCO's World Heritage Program in Vietnam, Cambodia, and across the world.