GLOBAL MULTI - LEVEL GOVERNANCE : European and Asian

The essays collectively address large themes: the clash between past and present in traditional culture; the ascription of miraculous powers to objects and the question of agency; commodifi cation, commercialism, collecting and globalism; the object as a lightning rod for nostalgia or authority; the search for the “authentic”; and the relationship of gender and power. Addressed to specialists, the tome is heavy in critical theory, Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency: A New Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) being the favourite, which often creates a drag in the pace of the prose. Judicious editing would have ameliorated this problem to some degree. The reader frequently wishes for a bibliography so as not to have to hunt for references buried in the endnotes. The book, nonetheless, provides considerable food for thought as traditional cultures rush pell-mell into the twenty-fi rst century.