Review of “Heritage Politics in China: The Power of the Past” By Yujie Zhu and Christina Maags

‘Heritage Politics in China’ examines the process of heritage-making in China, focusing on how ‘universal’ heritage regimes and discourses promoted by UNESCO are appropriated by different stakeholders in China to legitimise the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Drawing on ‘value appropriation’ as a central analytical framework, Zhu and Maags analyse how state institutions in China have mobilised these ‘universal’ heritage discourses and policies locally to reinforce a collective national identity and promote economic development. Through such value appropriation, local cultural practices are transformed fromthe private domains into a form of public good amenable to state governance and exploitation. This book engages with these complex politics of heritage appropriation, contestation, and negotiation in contemporary China. It makes an important contribution to research on critical heritage studies, especially in mainland China, which is experiencing a heritage renaissance or what the authors term as ‘a heritage fever’. [Opening paragraph]