A EUROPEAN CULTURAL IDENTITY? HERITAGE and SHARED HISTORIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Authors: VAN GORP, BOUKE; RENES, HANS

Source: Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Volume 98, Number 3, July 2007 , pp. 407-415(9)

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $48.00 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

Do the people in the European Union share a cultural identity? One important aspect of cultural identity is shared histories or common memories. Such histories can be presented by heritage. Heritage is those traces of the past a society chooses to preserve. Heritage is therefore also a way of defining oneself. To this day, the European Union has not yet compiled its own list of heritage. This paper analyses the World Heritage Sites of EU member states: sites that are considered to be of universal value. When taken together, what image of European history do these sites represent?

Keywords: Cultural identity; heritage; World Heritage List; European Union

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2007.00406.x

Affiliations: 1: Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3508 TC Utrecht, the Netherlands. s: ; j.renes@geo.uu.nl, Email: b.vangorp@geo.uu.nl

Publication date: 2007-07-01