Through a series of case studies that involve past conflict in China, the United States, The South Pacific and Europe, the nature of battlefield sites as tourist locations are explored. As places of past conflict and individual acts of heroism, these sites are places of story telling. How are these stories told? And for what purposes are the stories told? The acts and modes of interpretation are many, ranging from a discourse conducted through silences to the more complex nuanced story telling told through re-enactments of past battles. The book also asks where is the battle-field? - as case studies relate to conflicts that ranged over several hundreds of miles, to, on the other hand, acts of local civil disturbance that subsequently achieved mythic values in a history of national identity. The book is divided into 'acts', these being 'Acts of Resource Management', 'Acts of Silence', 'Acts of Discovery and Rediscovery', 'Acts of Imagination' and 'Acts of Remembrance' and embrace examples as diverse as an re-enactment of past battles on a New Zealand rural town cricket pitch to the towering strength of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, and from the Straits of Taiwan to the centre of Canada.

Chapter 1 Introduction, Chris Ryan; Part 1 Acts of Resource Management; Chapter 2 Introduction, Chris Ryan; Chapter 3 Echoes of War, Bruce Prideaux; Chapter 4 It's Just a Bloody Field! Approaches, Opportunities and Dilemmas of Interpreting English Battlefields, Mark Piekarz; Chapter 5 A Proposed Code of Conduct for War Heritage Sites, Teresa Leopold; Chapter 6 Jinggangshan Mountain, Gu Huimin, Chris Ryan, Zhang Wei; Part 2 Acts of Silence; Chapter 7 Introduction, Chris Ryan; Chapter 8 Post-Colonial Representations of Japanese Military Heritage, Malcolm Cooper; Chapter 9 The Battles of Rangiriri and Batoche, Chris Ryan; Chapter 10 Seventy Years of Waiting, Hugh Smith; Chapter 11 The Legerdemain in the Rhetoric of Battlefield Museums, Craig Wight; Part 3 Acts of Discovery and Rediscovery; Chapter 12 Introduction, Chris Ryan; Chapter 13 World War II and Tourism Development in Solomon Islands, Charlie Panakera; Chapter 14 Xiamen and Kinmen, Li-Hui Chang, Chris Ryan; Chapter 15 Hot War Tourism, Mark Piekarz; Part 4 Acts of Imagination; Chapter 16 Introduction, Chris Ryan; Chapter 17 Cambridge Armistice Day Celebrations, Chris Ryan, Jenny Cave; Chapter 18 Refighting the Eureka Stockade, Warwick Frost; Chapter 19 Re-enacting the Battle of Aiken, Chris Ryan; Part 5 Acts of Remembrance; Chapter 20 Introduction, Chris Ryan; Chapter 21 Yorktown and Patriot's Point, Charleston, South Carolina, Chris Ryan; Chapter 22 Romanticising Tragedy, Fiona McLean, Mary-Catherine Garden, Gordon Urquhart; Chapter 23 Forts Sumter and Moultrie, Chris Ryan; Chapter 24 Synthesis and Antithesis, Chris Ryan;