ABSTRACT
This quote refers to the election of a new prime minister and government in the UK after the Second World War, when Sir Winston Churchill, despite his efforts and all the tributes to him as prime minister during the war, was not re-elected. Churchill’s now famous quote is known as the grand example of what democracy is all about. It means: No matter how justified you think your opinions are, you must yield (preferable with a dose of humour stripped of self-importance) to the opinion of the public. This lesson about power and public opinion applies equally to how a state-driven heritage management is organised and performed in democratic societies. No matter how well made the arguments by the experts within the research and management sector are about the business they conduct, their opinions seem poor if they do not include or lead to dialogues with public opinion about the past and the uses of heritage. This is why institutional heritage managements in democratic societies are concerned with what people value and with how trends and deeper questions that occupy our time affect heritage practices and these are also significant matters for heritage researchers to uncover and analyse. In this context, the overall aim of this book is to examine how heritage benefits the citizens of democratic societies. A main objective of the book is to elaborate and discuss the challenges of how to manage cultural heritage viewed in relation to societal processes in contemporary societies. The focus, examples and topics in the book are Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). By this geographical approach we aim to examine to what extent ‘Nordic heritage’ relates to discourses on democracy and the public.
