Thinking About Cultural Resource Management: Essays from the Edge

by Thomas F. King Owner, Thomas F. King PhD

Overview

Tom King knows cultural resource management. As one of its long-standing practitioners, a key person in developing the regulations, and a consultant, trainer, and author of several important books on the topic, King's ideas on CRM have had a large impact on contemporary practice. In this witty, sardonic book, he outlines ways of improving how cultural resources are treated in America. King tackles everything from disciplinary blinders, NAGPRA, and the National Register to flaws in the Section 106 process, avaricious consultants, and the importance of meaningful consultation with native peoples. This brief work is an important source of new ideas for anyone working in this field and a good starting point for discussion in courses and training programs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759116542
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	08/27/2002
Series:	Heritage Resource Management Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Dr. Thomas F. King is recognized as a national expert on cultural and historic preservation laws and practice, about which he teaches dozens of courses annually and has authored three books. Former program director at the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation, he is the primary author of many existing historic preservation regulations and guidelines. He also served as an archaeologist and historic preservation specialist in the former U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, as archaeologist for the National Park Service, and as head of archaeological surveys at three universities and helped create the Micronesia Archaeological Survey. King serves as Project Archaeologist for the Amelia Earhart Project, sponsored by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), and is lead author of Amelia Earhart's Shoes, about the search for Earhart. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from University of California, Riverside.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Rethinking Cultural Resource Management
Chapter 2: Thinking About Cultural Resources Management as an Extradisciplinary Enterprise
Chapter 3: Doing a Job on Culture
Chapter 4: It's Not Ethnography, Either
Chapter 5: An Uninspired Centerpiece: The National Register of Historic Places
Chapter 6: The Hester
Chapter 7: Process vs. Preservation: a False Dichotomy
Chapter 8: Thinking About Impact Assessment and Mitigation
Chapter 9: What Is Section 106 Review Anyhow? Two Views
Chapter 10: What if We Lost Section 106? Is the Worst Case Necessarily the Worst Case?
Chapter 11: What's in a Name? The Case of "Potentially Eligible" Historic Properties
Chapter 12: In the Eye of the Beholder: Visual Impacts and Section 106 Review
Chapter 13: "Historic Preservation's Responsibility" and Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act
Chapter 14: The Letter of the Law
Chapter 15: A Consultant's Duty
Chapter 16: Thinking about Indigenous Issues
Chapter 17: What's Really Wrong with NAGPRA
Chapter 18: Stupid TCP Tricks
Chapter 19: Bigger Than a Breadbox?
Chapter 20: What Should We Consult About, and How Much Information Do We Need to Do It?
Chapter 21: Thinking About Archeology in CRM
Chapter 22: Archeo-Bias: Recognition and Prevention
Chapter 23: Integrity Among Archeologists: The Dirty Truth
Chapter 24: A 1937 Winged Liberty Head Dime From Silver Spring, Maryland
Chapter 25: Lafayette, Where Are You? The European Union, Cultural Heritage, and CRM in the United States
Glossary
Bibliography
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

King's critical voice is indeed a refreshing retort to the uncritical literature that frequently appears in cultural resource management and historic preservation policy publications...King's rebukes encourage a new line of thinking about CRM: a much more critical understanding of the regulations that govern our work and the fragmented sources of power that often lie behind it.

Vernacular Architecture Newsletter, No. 97 - Kirk E. Ranzetta

I promise you a great read, lots of opportunities to live inside of Tom King's head for a little while and find out exactly what a cosmic, marvelously contentious and critically important thought space that really is. Anyone who is on the consulting or receiving end of CRM practice should see this book as a must-read. It is not a primer on process, but rather a sequence of considerations on the 'why'-ness of it all, and how we as a national community have more, or less, managed our collective cultural affairs....you will get high humor in the midst of the dandy diatribes.

Deborah Morse-Kahn Regional Research Associates

This book contains the same rational, articulate and pointed critique of CRM laws and their implementation that we have come to expect and enjoy from King....I strongly recommend this book to anyone involved in cultural resource management and believe it should be a fundamental teaching tool for university courses.

Kiva - Kurt E. Dongoske

Few individuals are better placed to provide sage advice and observation about the current state of CRM practice than King.

Industrial Archeology - Erik Nordberg

Thinking About Cultural Resource Management: Essays from the Edge...includes thoughtful articles on a wide range of topics including meaningful consultation with Native People and biases among archaeologists.

Sacred Sites Newsletter

A substantial contribution to American historical and archaeological resources at both intellectual and hands-on levels...a worthy enterprise...I can commend this to anybody in CRM domains...happily and strongly recommend[ed]

Bruce Rippeteaun Antiquity

King effectively provoked me into a critical evaluation of what we are trying to accomplish with CRM. I recommend this volume as food for thougt to CRM practitioners, government regulators and teachers of CRM practice at universities and colleges.

Canadian Journal of Archaeology - L.J. (Butch) Amundson

This book is...interesting in providing a context for the growth of the heritage industry...the underpinning issues are highly relevant...the book should be compulsory reading for heritage professionals, both within and outside government agencies.

Historic Environment - Michael Pearson

A substantial contribution to American historical and archaeological resources at both intellectual and hands-on levels...a worthy enterprise...I can commend this to anybody in CRM domains...happily and strongly recommend[ed]

American Antiquity, Vol. 69, No. 1, 2004 - Bruce Rippeteau

Thinking About Cultural Resource Management: Essays from the Edge...includes thoughtful articles on a wide range of topics including meaningful consultation with Native People and biases among archaeologists.

Vol. 13.1 (Fall 2002) Sacred Sites Newsletter

King effectively provoked me into a critical evaluation of what we are trying to accomplish with CRM. I recommend this volume as food for thougt to CRM practitioners, government regulators and teachers of CRM practice at universities and colleges.
— L.J. (Butch) Amundson, (Stantec Consulting Ltd., Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)

Canadian Journal Of Archaeology

King's critical voice is indeed a refreshing retort to the uncritical literature that frequently appears in cultural resource management and historic preservation policy publications...King's rebukes encourage a new line of thinking about CRM: a much more critical understanding of the regulations that govern our work and the fragmented sources of power that often lie behind it.--Kirk E. Ranzetta "Vernacular Architecture Newsletter, No. 97, Fall 2003 "

A substantial contribution to American historical and archaeological resources at both intellectual and hands-on levels...a worthy enterprise...I can commend this to anybody in CRM domains...happily and strongly recommend[ed]--Bruce Rippeteau, University of South Carolina "American Antiquity, Vol. 69, No. 1, 2004 "

This book is...interesting in providing a context for the growth of the heritage industry...the underpinning issues are highly relevant...the book should be compulsory reading for heritage professionals, both within and outside government agencies.--Michael Pearson, University of Canberra "Historic Environment, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2003 "

From the Publisher