A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace

This book just does not flow. Someone who visits UNESCO sites but is not already well acquainted with the organization gets quickly lost. The heavily academic text has an excess of names of people from 60 years ago that are only mentioned once. Multi-clause sentences of 50+ words are common and there are pages and pages of annotations, a lot referencing meeting from the last 50 years. Even the intriguing stories are not presented in a way that works for the non-archeologist. The author discusses some inherent conflicting goals in the mission: good archeology vs. restoration, national pride vs. truly cultural sites, and the quests for tourism and for government vs academic funding. But these discussions jump around and are mostly semantics not illustrated with readable examples. There are many subtle digs at America's role. It gets two stars the author did the homework. I'm not sure who the target audience.

Liked for content and scholarship