More recently the word has become a flabby catch-all, a term applied indiscriminately to almost anything connected with the past. Heritage, much empirical evidence tells him, is modern invention - it is the manufacture, packaging and promotion of a product.
History is a search for understanding, which respects the dignity and discipline of sources.
Conservation might be seen as a boundary where history and heritage meet. At the same time they are, or should be, answering to history. The capture of history by heritage would be a calamity, and one would like to think that the Departments of Education and Heritage are alert to it. Whether they are, however, is complicated by the extent to which the Government has delegated responsibilities. On the archaeological side alone they include a constellation of national agencies, the British Academy, universities, commercial developers, the Highways Agency, hundreds of local authorities, and other Government departments.