Specialized Books

This book is an exhibition of historic and current photographs and drawings of sixty-one American buildings that represent fading currents in American society.

A guide to the conservation of family antiques, including books and documents, clocks and watches, silverware, jewellery, musical instruments, military mementos, dolls, teddy bears and toy soldiers. The book also considers security and insurance issues and has cleaning and storage advice.

We all have a stake in the past and in its tangible preservation, and we trust professionals to preserve our cultural heritage for the future. However, restoration in all its forms is entangled in many contemporary theoretical debates and problems. This book is the first concerted effort to examine together the linked philosophies of the different arts of preserving and uncovering the past: the restoration of buildings, conservation of works of art, and editing of literary works to retrieve their original or intended texts. By investigating a series of recent crises in each of these areas, Securing the Past shows how their underlying justifications relate closely to one another. Paul Eggert shows how they have been philosophically undermined by postmodern theories and charts another, richer way forward to a new future for the past.