Cultural Heritage in Transition: A Multi-Level Perspective on World Heritage in Germany and the United Kingdom, 1970-2020

This book introduces the multilevel perspective to analyze how local, national, and international actors and institutions in the heritage field interact. More specifically, a comparative study is made of controversies regarding six UNESCO World Heritage sites in Germany and the United Kingdom. The six cases involve traditional monuments (the cathedral of Aachen and the castle and cathedral of Durham), industrial heritage (the Zollverein Coal Mine in Essen and the former tin and copper mines in Cornwall), and cities (Dresden and Liverpool). Studying how long-term landscape developments interact with local actors and nationally organized regimes reveals important differences between the decentralized German and the centralized British approach to heritage preservation. These differences not only have consequences for the governance of heritage preservation in the two countries, but also for their relations with international organizations such as UNESCO.