ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 outlines the European project of identifying and constructively mobilising a singular ‘European heritage’ for social, political and collective benefit, involving the making of a ‘European heritage demos’. This is a means of collectivising a heterogeneous citizenry by creating a common historical backstory that informs an identity position amenable to cohesion and feelings of unity. We speak back to this agenda, to propose an alternative, realist perspective that there is hardly one monolithic European heritage, and therefore, dialectically, no single Europe. This multiplication of meanings is produced through an array of dimensions that are much more numerous and pervasive than conventional bracketings of where heritage ‘sits’ within public, cultural and social life. This makes ‘European heritage’ difficult to contain, to regulate and to measure out in the ideal form desired by policy makers; it may even mean that the heritage demos is a dream that cannot be realised.
