How Heritage Shapes Chinese Civilisation - Continuity in Change

This book considers the role of cultural heritage and its efficacies in Chinese civilisation. It utilises a novel approach in viewing heritage as a long-term process that serves as a foundation for political hierarchies and orthodoxy while also contributing to cultural exchange through knowledge transmission. By asking the question ‘what does heritage do’, this book uses the lenses of history and anthropology to consider the role of heritage in civilisation. Using examples from Imperial China, it examines social patterns in Chinese uses and attitudes towards the past over long periods of time. Founded in cross-disciplinary research, it examines heritage efficacies and patterns across four pathways – destruction, collection, transmission and creation. Each of these pathways explore the different roles heritage plays in continuing and transforming Chinese civilisation through practices such as antiquarianism, collecting, craftsmanship, and knowledge transmission. These pathways demonstrate the multiple forms and power centres within various social groups, including marginalised or indigenous communities, who each interpret and use heritage to shape the relationship between state and society differently. How Heritage Shapes Chinese Civilisation will be beneficial to researchers and postgraduate students in Heritage Studies, Museum Studies, Anthropology and History. It offers novel points of view and critical ideas that will be useful to undergraduate and graduate students of Tourism, Cultural and Social Geography, and East Asian History and Chinese Studies.