ABSTRACT
The following was written in 2004 as the final chapter of Giving Preservation a History, an anthology of articles on the history of preservation.
PRESERVATION PROFESSION PICKS PRUDENCE OVER PASSION. Or so one might summarize Antoinette Lee’s account of preservation’s last forty years.1 Once upon a time, historic preservation was a passionate protest. Now it’s a prudent profession. The question is: could this careful, practical, well-organized profession of historic preservation once again give rise to a movement: a committed effort to change the way society imagines, preserves, and inhabits its heritage?
