ABSTRACT
'History is written by the winners' is the received wisdom. This book explains why historical interpretation has to incorporate perspectives from those other than 'winners', and demonstrates archaeology's crucial role in this wide-ranging approach. The book draws more on Africa, Afro-America, Australasia and Oceania than on Europe, the source of the traditionally dominant perspective in archaeology. The four organizing themes of The Politics of the Past are the forms and consequences of the Eurocentric heritage, the conflicting perspectives of rulers and ruled, the significance of administrative and institutional rivalries, and the cleavages that divide professional from popular views of archaeology.
Archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and other scholars will find The Politics of the Past illuminating and provocative. It will enrich historical and archaeological inquiry and interpretation, and ramify their relevance for public policy.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 2|19 pages
Public presentations and private concerns: archaeology in the pages of National Geographic
chapter 5|11 pages
Black people and museums: the Caribbean Heritage Project in Southampton
chapter 8|11 pages
Nga Tukemata: Nga Taonga o Ngati Kahungunu (The awakening: the treasures of Ngati Kahungunu)
chapter 10|11 pages
Aboriginal perceptions of the past: the implications for cultural resource management in Australia
chapter 13|15 pages
Museums: two case studies of reaction to colonialism Frank Willett 172 178
part |2 pages
Introduction
chapter 15|11 pages
The development of museums in Botswana: dilemmas and tensions in a front-line state Robert MacKenzie
chapter 18|12 pages
Fifty years of conservation experience on Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile
part |2 pages
Introduction