Giulio Verdini, PhD in Economics, Urban and Regional Development, from the University of Ferrara, is Associate Professor in Urban Planning and Design and Co-Director of the Research Institute of Urbanisation at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, People's Republic of China. Dr. Yiwen Wang, PhD in Architecture from the University of Nottingham, is Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, People's Republic of China. Dr. Xiaonan Zhang, PhD in Urban Geography at University of Salford, UK, is the former Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Xian Jiaotong- Liverpool University, People's Republic of China.

The Heritage Turn in China: The Reinvention, Dissemination and Consumption of Heritage focuses on heritage discourse and practice in China today as it has evolved from the 'heritage turn' that can be dated to the 1990s. Using a variety of disciplinary approaches to regionally and topically diverse case studies, the contributors to this edited volume show how particular versions of the past are selected, (re)invented, disseminated and consumed for contemporary purposes. These studies explore how the Chinese state utilises heritage not only for tourism, entertainment, educational and commercial purposes, but also as part of broader political strategies on both the national and international stage. Together, they argue that the Chinese state deploys modes of heritage governance to construct new modernities while strengthening collective national identity in support of both its political legitimacy and its claim to status as an international superpower. The authors also consider ways in which state management of heritage is contested by some stakeholders whose embrace of heritage has a different purpose and meaning.