"The eighth edition fully updates the book to add 42 new sites. World Heritage sites are judged under strict criteria with a view to the aim that they reflect the world's cultural and natural diversity and are of outstanding universal value. World Heritage Sites attracts a general readership as well as travellers and those with an interest in natural or human history, the Earth sciences, geography, conservation of the environment, wildlife and habitats; and planning and preservation."--

Each site has an entry explaining its historical and cultural significance, with a description and location map.

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972 set the contemporary standard for cultural and natural conservation. Today, a place on the World Heritage List is much sought after for tourism promotion, development funding, and national prestige. Presenting case studies from across the globe, particularly from Africa and Asia, anthropologists with situated expertise in specific World Heritage sites explore the consequences of the World Heritage framework and the global spread of the UNESCO heritage regime. This book shows how local and national circumstances interact with the global institutional framework in complex and unexpected ways. Often, the communities around World Heritage sites are constrained by these heritage regimes rather than empowered by them.

The definitive guide to all 1,007 World Heritage sites.

A unique guide to every UNESCO World Heritage site, this book explores some of the world's most extraordinary places.

Each site has an entry explaining its historical and cultural significance, with a description and location map.

There is a World Heritage Craze in China. China claims to have the longest continuous civilization in the world and is seeking recognition from UNESCO. This book explores three dimensions of the UNESCO World Heritage initiative with particular relevance for China: the universal agenda, the national practices, and the local responses. With a sociological lens, this book offers comprehensive insights into World Heritage, as well as China’s deep social, cultural, and political structures.

"Published jointly by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) ... and Firefly Books Ltd. 2014"--Title page verso.

This book explores how the mere designation of World Heritage sites can achieve UNESCO's goal of creating lasting worldwide peace. Drawing on ethnography, policy analysis, and a sophisticated fusion of anthropological theories, Di Giovine convincingly reveals the existence of a global heritage-scape and provides a detailed yet expansive look at the politics and processes, histories and structures, and the rituals and symbolisms of the interrelated phenomena of tourism, historic preservation, and UNESCO's World Heritage Convention.

This book presents the natural, environmental and scenic richness of the world’s coastal and marine areas classified by UNESCO as “Natural World Heritage Sites”. Representing well-preserved areas of exceptional significance to the planet and to humankind, they include a total of 49 marine sites, formed by reefs, atolls and gulfs, and 35 coastal sites in all oceans and all continents with exception of Antarctica. They are being protected and preserved from most degrading uses for future generations as an important legacy from the past. Exploring their richness, this book analyzes and explains these sites in a clear, understandable, scientific way, and is of interest to all who work in or care about the geosciences, environmental sciences and biosciences.