Section E · Changing approaches to learning

This section presents some of the ways in which historic sites, of every type, are interpreted. It discusses some long established approaches and considers how people working at these sites present their properties to modern audiences with high expectations, considerable technical sophistication and diverse backgrounds but, in many cases, a diminishing knowledge of the social, historical and religious factors which have shaped many of these sites.

This study has not been able to make a detailed study of activities overseas. It is clear, however, that many of the advanced and lively ideas about the presentation of historic sites derive from the United States, where at Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, Monticello and other sites, an impressive variety of work has been undertaken over at least the past half century.