The preservation of cultural property is never a neutral activity; and the question of who is to possess, care for, and interpret artifacts is highly politically charged. This paper examines how preservation was used as a justification for the removal of pieces of immovable archaeological sites in the early twentieth century, and became a tool for building museum collections. This study focuses on a collection of 12 wall painting fragments from the site of Dunhuang, China, which were removed by art historian Langdon Warner in 1924 for the Fogg Art Museum. The removal process resulted in significant damage to some of the fragments as well as to the site itself, calling into question what is preserved: an intact ancient artifact or an ancient artifact scarred by and embedded with its modern collection history? Using the Harvard collection as an example, I explore the contradictions and legacies of early preservation ethics.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The Harvard University Art Museums generously supported this research through the Baird Fellowship and the Advanced-Level Training Program at the Straus Center for Conservation. I am particularly thankful to Thomas Lentz, Francesca Bewer, and Glenn Gates for their encouragement and advice throughout this study. I thank Abigail Smith, Martha Mahard, and Joanne Bloom Toplyn of the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University for providing access to archival documents and photographs. I owe a great debt to the staff of the Straus Center for Conservation, particularly Henry Lie, Craigen Bowen, Kathleen Kennelly, Narayan Khandekar, Anthony Sigel, and former interns Ige Verslype and Scott Homolka. I am grateful to Robert Mowry, Melissa Moy, and Anne Rose Kitagawa of the HUAM Department of Asian Art. Finally, I would like to thank the anonymous reviews of International Journal of Cultural Property, Francesca Bewer, Julie Hollowell, Robert Mowry, and Anand Pandian for their attentive and thoughtful readings of this article.

This paper is about the recent discussions (known as Denkmalpflegediskussion) on the principles and practices of state heritage management in Germany. In an expert report commissioned by the prominent German politician Antje Vollmer from Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm, a number of fundamental criticisms were made. They concern existing practices of state heritage management, some of which are said to alienate and patronize people. One of the main issues discussed is therefore whether the management of the cultural heritage should be further decentralized (‘entstaatlicht’) and made the responsibility of individual citizens and other stake-holders. The overriding criterion for scheduling should be a site's ability to move people aesthetically and emotionally, rather than some complex academic reasoning about historical significance. The significance of beauty and feelings to heritage is illustrated by discussing a citizens' initiative promoting comprehensive reconstructions in the Dresden Neumarkt area, around the recently restored Frauenkirche. This paper seeks to review some of the key issues of the German debate and begin a discussion of how it might relate to states heritage management in other countries for which Sweden serves as an example. The question asked is to what extent heritage management elsewhere too can, and should, be further democratized.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I am grateful to Riksantikvarieämbetets FoU programme for supporting the research on which this paper is based, Gottfried Kerscher for sending me his defunct webpages, Matthias Donath for several valuable suggestions concerning the debate in Germany, Stefan Hertzig for his readiness to answer questions about the Gesellschaft Historischer Neumarkt Dresden, and to Bodil Petersson for comments on a shorter text about the same topic published in Sweden (Holtorf 2006). For help with the images I am obliged to Stefan Hertzig and Matthias Donath. I would also like to thank two referees for their constructive suggestions and encouragement and Alexander Bauer for a very quick turnaround.

Since the late 1990s, the American museum community has nobly sought to resolve restitution claims involving Nazi-looted art in an equitable fashion. Under the auspices of various ethical guidelines recognizing the horrific tragedies of the Holocaust, museums have made a commitment to purge their collections of artwork tainted by Nazi theft. It remains unclear, however, whether these guidelines govern restitution claims that are based not on Nazi theft but on coerced sales arising from Nazi persecution. This article argues that the scope of the guidelines should be expanded to govern restitution claims arising from coerced sales, and that coerced sales include not only sales in which the Nazis participated but also private sales made by individuals who, as a direct result of Nazi persecution, who were forced to sell their artwork to flee or otherwise survive the Holocaust.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would especially like to thank Professor Stephen Urice for his indispensable insight and overall support in the development of this article. I would also like to thank Ildi DeAngelis and Professor John Merryman for their excellent suggestions, and Thaddeus Stauber for his willingness to discuss the Martha Nathan cases.

A slightly edited discussion on the protection of landscapes is offered as an example of cross-disciplinary teaching in heritage studies. It was one of the online components linking students and facilitators from the disciplines of archaeology, communications, conservation, medieval studies, journalism, and law, located in Canberra, Kabul, Nagoya, Sydney, Melbourne, and Toowoomba. It shows the value of informal online discussion in devleoping understanding of heritage issues from different perspectives.

In Iran v. Berend, the High Court in London had occasion to revisit one of the most enduring problems of private international law and cultural property. Effective regulation of the illicit market in cultural property is extremely difficult, because many measures aimed at stemming the illicit trade actually contribute to the black market. Courts in both England and the United States have shown that they are prepared to use criminal laws to convict persons involved in the illegal trade in antiquities exported in violation of foreign patrimony laws. As a result, much cultural property policy debate in recent years has focused on the extent to which the criminal law can impact the illicit trade. The extent to which national ownership declarations can be used in civil disputes remains less clear.

Sarah Dromgoole, ed. The Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National Perspectives In Light of The UNESCO Convention 2001, 2nd ed. pp. 450. $176.00 Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2006. ISBN 10: 90-04-15273-3; 13: 978-90-04-15273-1.

Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, few nations around the world felt compelled to protect historic shipwrecks and other underwater cultural heritage (UCH) from vandalism and exploitation. However, as long-lost shipwrecks became more accessible through the growing popularity of scuba diving and increasingly sophisticated underwater search and salvage technology, the need for such legislation became more apparent. Dromgoole's first edition of this book, Legal Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National and International Perspectives (The Hague: Kluwer, 1999), provided a much-needed look at how various nations were coming to grips with the problem through domestic legislation. In the first edition, 13 essays explored a wide variety of legislative schemes from as many nations. A final essay described the ongoing effort to create an international treaty to protect UCH in international waters.