I remembered this column as I read the entry on “historic preservation” in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (ISI Books, 2006).
Author Catesby Leigh reminds us that:
[T]he preservation movement in the United States is now guided by professionals who subscribe to a historical and cultural relativism largely antithetical to traditional preservation and to a liberal interpretation of American political and social history.
Leigh highlights the early “history” of historical preservation before turning a critical eye toward trends that followed passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966.
The NHPA’s passage is a matter of almost macabre irony in that the federal government’s proverbial right arm used it in an attempt to limit the damage it was inflicting, through urban renewal, with its left.
Leigh argues that modern-day historic preservation differs greatly from the efforts that saved Mount Vernon and Independence Hall.
