Editorial: PIA Volume 22

It is axiomatic of capitalist society that the concept of value must inevitably be reduced down to a single monetary index. In other words, we have come to expect that, in final analysis, economic value trumps all others. In the last couple of years we have seen this most clearly expressed in the government’s attitude to forestry. The historical reluctance of officaldom to recognise value of a more intangible kind also lies at the heart of the tension in cultural heritage management between the historic environment and the pressure placed on its guardians to exploit or ignore those assets in favour of economic priorities...