ABSTRACT
Despite appeals to hoary antecedence, heritage itself is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Perhaps the very rhetoric of heritage as applied to relics and remains-an explicitly nationalized past-would be equally surprising. The word heritage, particularly in Britain, only finally shifted from specific legacies to a generalized bequest within recent memory. The history of heritage is intimately bound with conservation with which it is often identified. Venerating the past while perceiving threat reveals heritage arises as trope in a moment experienced as upheaval and change. Like the allied term tradition, heritage arises when in implicit contrast with modern transformations. Providence is the first benefaction, a founding gift opening an earthly space and field of resources from which subsequent legacies might be forged. Heritage had developed into an effective tool for combating strictly pragmatic and bottomline appeals. Such economically oriented arguments only address a limited notion of the present.
