ABSTRACT
This book is not a conventional text book, nor is it a conventional manual of management instruction. Yet the activity it is describing is of considerable, some would say supreme, importance. It is an activity undertaken in every country, all governments take a close interest in it, and its doings are frequently the subject of heated public debate. Its practitioners are also, as we shall see, bound by a common understanding of the nature of their work, and by a common ethical code. Yet arts administration is still not a profession, in any of the generally accepted senses of the term, and administering the arts well, though recognized as a highly specialized and skilled activity, still does not readily fit into any one academic category.
