James Stourton

Heritage: A History of How We Conserve Our Past.

What is heritage? When was it invented? What is its place in the world today? What is its place tomorrow? 

Heritage is all around us: millions belong to its organisations, tens of thousands volunteer for it, and politicians pay lip service to it. The former Chair of Sotheby’s James Stourton focuses on the elements of our cultural and natural environment that have been deliberately preserved on two heroic periods of conservation – the 1880s and the 1960s.  He considers whether threats of wealth, rampant development and complacency are similar in the present day.