A European cultural identity? Heritage and shared histories in the European Union

Abstract

Do the people in the European Union share a cultural identity? One important aspect of cultural identity is shared histories or common memories. Such histories can be presented by heritage. Heritage is those traces of the past a society chooses to preserve. Heritage is therefore also a way of defining oneself. To this day, the European Union has not yet compiled its own list of heritage. This paper analyses the World Heritage Sites of EU member states: sites that are considered to be of universal value. When taken together, what image of European history do these sites represent?. © 2007 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.