Cultural Heritage in Modern Conflict (Routledge Advances in Defence Studies)

This edited volume offers an in-depth study of heritage and warfare from the perspective of defence studies.

The book focuses on how, in different contexts, heritage can be a catalyst and target of conflict, an obstacle to stabilisation, and a driver of peace-building. It documents the changing role of heritage – in terms of both exploitation and protection – in various military capabilities, theatres, and operations. With particular concern for the areas of subthreshold and hybrid warfare, stabilisation, cultural relationships, human security, and disaster response, the volume reviews the historical relationship between heritage and armed conflict, including the roles of embedded archaeologists, safeguarding of ethics, and dislodgement and destruction of material culture. Various chapters in the book also demonstrate the value of understanding how state and non-state actors exploit cultural heritage across different defence postures and within both subthreshold and proxy warfare in order to achieve military, political, economic, and diplomatic advantages.

This book will be of interest to students of defence studies, heritage studies, anthropology and security studies in general, as well as military practitioners.

Timothy Clack is the Chingiz Gutseriev Fellow at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (SAME) and Dean of Reuben College, University of Oxford, UK. He is general editor of the Routledge Advances in Defence Studies (RAiDS) book series and co-editor, with Robert Johnson, of The World Information War (2021), Before Military Intervention (2018) and At the End of Military Intervention (2015).

Mark Dunkley is a professional archaeologist specialising in the management of underwater cultural heritage. He has investigated archaeological sites across the UK, overseas and underwater, and has published widely on cultural heritage protection. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a visiting fellow at Cranfield University, and an adviser to UNESCO UK.