ABSTRACT
This chapter considers those ways in which the past is related to the present through the lens of heritage. It explores the complicated relationship between uses of heritage and the discipline of history, reflecting on the theories and practices that public historians use when engaging with heritage claims by different communities in the present day. It argues for a more nuanced understanding of heritage as a force with the potential for both nostalgic oversimplification of the past and cultural empowerment, and as means for relating past to present that reveals much about contemporary debates over social and political power.
