PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Denise Maior-Barron is a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Tourism at Plymouth University, UK, and a Reader at the Huntington Library, California, USA. She obtained her PhD from Plymouth University in collaboration with the Château de Versailles, France, following two consecutive research internships at this UNESCO heritage site. Her research focuses on critical cultural heritage and tourist consumption, with an emphasis on rehabilitative history and popular representations in the social imaginary.
Marie-Antoinette has become a 'commodity' for audiences the world over, and the restored Petit Trianon floods with visitors. This fine book by Denise Maior-Barron brings a completely new, multidisciplinary perspective, omitting none of the historical or socio-political aspects of the Queen's mythology. The confrontation set out by the author between the work of historians and visitor perceptions will undoubtedly provoke passionate debate, just as it will reveal the deep gap between myth and objective research. Jeremie Benoit, Chief Curator, Petit Trianon, France Denise Maior-Barron cleverly unveils the many ways Marie Antoinette was and is perceived. Her well-researched book provides new insights about interactions within the heritage process and industry, between politics, popular culture and tourism, which reveal how history, with help from artificial memories, is often manipulated, misinterpreted and misunderstood. In so doing, she challenges the orthodoxy of much historical analysis that seeks only one truth in the past. John Barnes, Chief Executive, Historic Royal Palaces, UK 'Not just a monograph on two topics of apparently perennial public interest, Marie Antoinette and the Petit Trianon, but a fascinating bran tub of related themes: historical revision, art and architectural history, political manipulation, the falsifications of mass media promotion and so it goes on.' Martin Foley, Director, El Porvenir, Casa Museo Feliciano Bejar, Mexico
