Authors
Sinikka Elliott
Publication date
2013/3
Source
Contemporary Sociology
Volume
42
Issue
2
Pages
288-289
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Description
Alluding by its title to Adam Smith, The Cultural Wealth of Nations contributes to a field of cultural economics pioneered by scholars such as Viviana Zelizer, that explores the inseparability of economic and cultural domains and more specifically, the creation of economic value through symbolic representations, ritual, and narrative. The editors compiled a number of case studies that illumine the manner in which cultural resources (cultural ‘‘heritage,’’narratives about artifacts and places, images shaping the perception of products and peoples) are transmuted into economic wealth. The book examines historical processes, institutions, and agents that have effected such transformations, the social actors best positioned to recoup the resulting profits, difficulties encountered in attempts to turn culture to economic ends, and tactics used to surmount them. The case studies, almost all of which usefully cross-reference one …