Asia. Routledge handbook of heritage in Asia . Edited by Patrick Daly and Tim Winter. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2012. Pp. 367. Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Routledge handbook of heritage in Asia Edited by PATRICK DALY and TIM WINTER Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2012. Pp. 367. Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000647 This volume is a welcome, significant addition to the literature on global heritage studies. Divided into four sections--on conservation, politics and governance of heritage, remembrance and loss, and modernity and globalisation respectively--preceded by short introductions, the book is truly interdisciplinary, written by 27 specialists working in the fields of heritage management, conservation, anthropology, history, architecture, urban planning, geography, art history, sociology, and ecology. Given the enormous scope of the subject, the book presents an admirably 'expansive' coverage of topics (p. 4). Some of the core themes are: the challenges facing conservation efforts; tourism; geneaologies of the notions of heritage--a continually contested, negotiated, and redefined concept--as well as the history of the evolution of regulations; the prevalence of Western ideas regarding heritage including through the colonial legacy that not only created a network of institutions and academic disciplines, but also redefined monuments and altered community relationships; the dynamic between 'universal value' as defined by UNESCO and local perspectives; the impact of ideologies ranging from Orientalism and Romanticism to nationalism; state-driven, top-down policies regarding heritage; globalisation; and urbanisation. In the introductory chapter the editors Patrick Daly and Tim Winter write that 'the book aims to offer alternative ways of thinking about the production, conservation, and governance of culture and nature in Asia by exploring the unfolding complexities that surround the use of heritage as a term, set of values or concept today' (p. 4). They highlight Asia's immense cultural and natural diversity and its rapid contemporary change including economic development and urbanisation, as well as recent shifts in the way states 'negotiate their national histories and how they appropriate cultural pasts and natural environments within strategies of governance and identity making' (pp. 4, 6). Daly and Winter include a brief overview of the evolution of concepts, including that of 'sustainability', which bear upon the construction of 'heritage' as an internationally accepted and institutionalised, albeit continually reconstructed, idea. Considering cultural and natural heritage together, the editors note, is one of the ways in which the book challenges assumptions defining policy and research on heritage (p. 12). It would have been helpful if the editors expanded here as to how else the book addresses such assumptions. For instance, many of the chapters symbiotically consider tangible and intangible heritage together, in discussing topics ranging from sacred sites and cultural memory to conflict resolution, ecological heritage, 'Red Tourism' and martial arts. As Robyn Bushell and Russell Staiff write: 'the distinction between tangible, intangible and living heritage denies the complexity of shifting heritage discourse' (p. 250). Bushell and Staiff also call for 'seeing conservation and development as entangled processes within living places with (plural) heritages' (p. 247). Likewise Ken Taylor argues that for an inclusive approach integrating 'the concept of urban heritage conservation' and 'city development and expansion' together (p. 277). Colonial legacy is a key theme. That only 28, or 3 per cent, of World Heritage sites are in India, Himanshu Prabha Ray points out in an illuminating chapter, is a result of European ideas of 'linear history and chronology' underpinning the criteria used for assessing the 'outstanding universal value of sites' (p. …