Ross Wilson is Professor of Modern History and Public Heritage at the University of Chichester, UK. He is the author of Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums (2011), Landscapes of the Western Front (2012), Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain (2013) and New York in the First World War: Shaping an American City (2014).

We live in a world of dinosaurs and cavemen, of barons and peasants; our cities include Babylon and Rome, and our moral codes extend from the Victorian to the lawless Wild West. Or rather, as Ross Wilson demonstrates in this fascinating study, we lament that we do so, for metaphors and allusions to history constantly bubble through public life as a primary mode of condemning unwanted aspects of the present. This practice embodies the utopian conceit at the heart of modernity-- that the present stands utterly divorced from the past. But it also allows history to creep back in, for it furnishes a language of criticism.

• Introduction 1. Speaking about the Past 2. Prehistoric 3. Ancient 4. Medieval 5. Modern 6. Conclusions NotesBibliographyIndex

Ross Wilson is Professor of Modern History and Public Heritage at the University of Chichester, UK. He is the author of Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums (2011), Landscapes of the Western Front (2012), Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain (2013) and New York in the First World War: Shaping an American City (2014).

We live in a world of dinosaurs and cavemen, of barons and peasants; our cities include Babylon and Rome, and our moral codes extend from the Victorian to the lawless Wild West. Or rather, as Ross Wilson demonstrates in this fascinating study, we lament that we do so, for metaphors and allusions to history constantly bubble through public life as a primary mode of condemning unwanted aspects of the present. This practice embodies the utopian conceit at the heart of modernity-- that the present stands utterly divorced from the past. But it also allows history to creep back in, for it furnishes a language of criticism.

• Introduction 1. Speaking about the Past 2. Prehistoric 3. Ancient 4. Medieval 5. Modern 6. Conclusions NotesBibliographyIndex

Ross Wilson is Professor of Modern History and Public Heritage at the University of Chichester, UK. He is the author of Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums (2011), Landscapes of the Western Front (2012), Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain (2013) and New York in the First World War: Shaping an American City (2014).

We live in a world of dinosaurs and cavemen, of barons and peasants; our cities include Babylon and Rome, and our moral codes extend from the Victorian to the lawless Wild West. Or rather, as Ross Wilson demonstrates in this fascinating study, we lament that we do so, for metaphors and allusions to history constantly bubble through public life as a primary mode of condemning unwanted aspects of the present. This practice embodies the utopian conceit at the heart of modernity-- that the present stands utterly divorced from the past. But it also allows history to creep back in, for it furnishes a language of criticism.

• Introduction 1. Speaking about the Past 2. Prehistoric 3. Ancient 4. Medieval 5. Modern 6. Conclusions NotesBibliographyIndex