This is an important work of great relevance to all those serious about conserving and understanding all of our heritage. Place, Race, and Story is truly absorbing, a well-written and a consistently thought-provoking book. It would be easy to dismiss this book as simply an American solution to an American problem, but that would be to miss the point.

Kaufman argues cogently and often passionately that ‘the powers that be’ have not yet fully accepted the need for recognising the fundamental value of ‘story places’, built or natural sites that have special resonance for ordinary people. It is a fascinating and detailed series of essays in how federal, state and local authorities should and could interpret – and endorse – the importance of places that are central to people’s heritage, whoever these people may be and from wherever they may have come.