Cultural Heritage and Development in the Arab World is a compendium of texts published in 2008, more than two years before the sweeping political events, now commonly referred to as the Arab Spring, unfolded in the region. Author and editor Fekri Hassan notes early in its pages, “The Arab World today is at a critical cross-road” (15). His observations, and those of many of his cowriters, could not have been more prescient. Their lens is one of heritage—tangible and intangible—but this thoughtful volume looks far beyond the traditional purview of conservation concerns. It instead focuses on how heritage can be protected while also serving as a vehicle for social and economic development.

Michael Cernea charts recent scholarship and international policies that have wed these two activities, despite their historical separation. The notion of stewardship—that cultural heritage resources should be cared for and passed on to future generations—has often divorced heritage policy from that of mainstream economic development. The community benefits of preserving heritage assets often supersede financial interests for highest and best use, but the two need not be mutually exclusive. Capturing the economic potential of heritage assets to promote growth and improve quality of life is increasingly a necessity for rationalizing investment in conservation. But Cernea makes the case that effective heritage management can also add value, creating benefits to society beyond protection of the cultural resources, benefits such as poverty reduction, employment, educational gains, and so forth. The evolution of the concept of a “cultural sector,” involving tangible assets and resources as well as processes, enterprises, and actors, has been an important step in embedding heritage concerns within development policy. Cernea cautions that operationalizing such policies means designing investment vehicles and implementation practices that are integrative as well. One must move beyond “enclave projects” that just focus on select monuments and address the intersection of the cultural and economic sectors more robustly.

Nora Ebeid examines the practical implications of Cernea's points in the case of Egypt's cultural industries. With its vast trove of antiquities and high tourism levels (estimated at eight million in 2008 and, at that time, expected to double by 2013, though this has not been the case), Ebeid argues for the need to capitalize on these activities to benefit the population through job creation and work force expansion. Evaluating Egypt's cultural industries, including downstream and upstream activities, Ebeid exposes the need for guiding principles for commercial development, aimed at producing broader societal benefits. Eman Helmy and Chris Cooper also use the case of Egypt to explore the need for the heritage and tourism industries to be more collaborative, so as to improve planning and management and ensure mutually beneficial policies that promote sustainable development. Rachid Sidi Boumedine extends the tourism discussion to the 10 countries of the Sahara, echoing that integrated management and planning can and should serve broader community goals, such as poverty alleviation and infrastructure development, environment and natural resource protection, and local education.

Several authors in Cultural Heritage and Development in the Arab World provide an informative review of the need for integration of heritage within economic and social policies and its practical implications. The most provocative analyses, however, are those that delve into the heritage enterprise and question how its fundamental tenets play out in the region as well as in a development-driven model.

Early in the volume, Hassan embraces the concept of heritage broadly, noting that it is a “body of knowledge that uses objects as its proxy” (16). Beyond just the fabric of sites and monuments, heritage is inherited skills and knowledge, which are important not only because they should be preserved, but because they present opportunities for innovation. Several authors, including Ahmed Mursi, Alexander Bauer, and Ahmed Abdel-Latif, bring some structure to these ideas using the international parlance of intangible heritage. Mursi charts the historical evolution of protection measures at the international level, and Latif underscores the need for the Arab region to engage in these intercultural policy debates so as to ensure representation and prevent misappropriation. But Bauer effectively hones in on the tensions between tangible and intangible heritage and the pitfalls of their preservation. To safeguard heritage, you must define it. And by defining it, you effectively limit its evolution.

Several authors implicitly grapple with the limitations of tangible heritage management policies and strategies, which focus so much on place, while they explicitly advocate for capitalizing on the intangible knowledge and practices that are embodied in the people and communities. As scholars and practitioners, we know instinctively that the tangible and intangible values of our cultural heritage are inextricably linked, that these values are in constant flux, and that the knowledge and skills involved in the creative process are part and parcel of the heritage resources it produces. But policy has not necessarily caught up with theory on this front. In the international heritage establishment, tangible heritage has had a much longer history, resulting in a more codified set of policies and practices focused on the preservation of places and their material representations. The evolving debate regarding intangible heritage has resulted in distinct policy tools, in part because of the infrastructure that has emerged around tangible heritage, which often limits flexibility and inclusion.

A very subtle theme throughout the compendium is the challenge of meeting the needs of the region given the local-international dynamic. Tamima Orra Mourad eloquently charts a history of heritage appropriation and institutionalization in the Near East during the past two centuries. Power relationships produce dominant narratives, which in turn influence who interprets the past and how, harking back to Hassan and Youssef's introduction and how heritage can often be a tool for reconfiguring the past to meet political agendas. In the region, the evolution of heritage management and its use in development are made more complex by the history of Ottoman rule and the application of European models. But Mourad argues that shifting political institutions and power relationships do not forgive the responsibility of individuals to shape their past and thus their future. Galal Abada examines half a century of varied national and international interests in preserving historic urban heritage in Egypt, discussing the pros and cons of “top down” versus “bottom up” planning. Abada asserts that there is a need to strengthen grassroots visions and on-the-ground initiatives so that heritage management benefits communities, echoing Mourad's conclusion that social engagement is critical to heritage-inclusive development policy.

One of the book's strongest themes is that of community participation, not simply in heritage conservation but in creating visions for development that derive from shared heritage and capitalize on its potential for economic opportunity. In examining the case of Lebanon, Khaled Tadmoury emphasizes that there is a need to move beyond the creation of heritage inventories and protective measures, and to create policies and practices for ensuring that heritage works to benefit society. And Tadmoury unambiguously tackles the issue of individual freedom and common good, noting that heritage preservation “limits the individual's freedom of action… In return it throws on the society the responsibility for providing the means for preserving it as well as developing it” (83). Thus, he and other authors move beyond the increasingly common rhetoric of community engagement in heritage planning, toward a more unequivocal concept of collective action and shared responsibility.

Individual obligation to the common good through active participation is, in many regards, the most salient—and poignant—topic of Cultural Heritage and Development in the Arab World. In the introductory text by Hassan and Youssef, as well as the final text by Sheikha Hussa Al Sabah, the need for better government coordination of heritage-driven development, both within countries and between countries, is emphasized. But Hassan underscores the need to rephrase the goals of development in vernacular terms, by engaging local communities and encouraging the participation of civil society. He notes that “heritage should have the power to liberate, not imprison” (32), alluding to the importance of participatory decision-making and the mobilization of heritage in service to development. And as part of a discussion about the role of information technology in sustainable development, Nagla Rizk discusses the use of the Internet as a “means for political expression and exercising freedoms” (173).

The observations within this volume seem eerily prophetic given the chain of events since late 2010, and the analyses are now put to the test in a brave new world. Political instability threatens significant heritage resources in the region, but more importantly individuals and communities continue to suffer. The emergence of new structures and institutions of government may take considerable time, but the examinations within this book suggest very interesting possibilities on the horizon for heritage and its role in the Middle East and North Africa. The clear need to address social and economic development concerns may de facto compel heritage planning and management in service to these broader aims. The cultural heritage infrastructure of the West, which also underpins international heritage policy, is well established and bureaucratized. Its evolution over the past half century has codified the notion that heritage conservation is a valid social endeavor, an end in and of itself, meant to protect these resources for posterity. As a result, governments and NGOs now struggle to integrate heritage concerns into broader strategies for sustainable development, as heritage stewardship has been institutionalized outside of mainstream economic, environmental, and social policymaking. The upheaval in the region opens the possibility for new and innovative models that better contextualize heritage within development frameworks. Whether through participatory processes that engage communities in joint decision-making and/or reconceptualized institutions and policies that compel heritage-driven development, the region has an opportunity to reinvent the role heritage plays in ensuring quality of life and social well-being. If this opportunity can indeed be seized, it could spark a much needed paradigm shift in cultural heritage theory and practice that develops new and mutually beneficial connections between people and the places they hold dear. Only time will tell.