This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, namely to analyze changes in Malian politics during the last two decades. It suggests that a detailed study of cultural heritage and its transformations is key to understanding the 2012 impasse of the Malian democratic experiment and, more generally, to understanding critical aspects of modern power in postcolonial Mali. A key focus of this work is to understand how democracy and neoliberalism have affected state practices, particularly as seen through the prism of the heritage field. The remainder of chapter discusses governmentality and cultural heritage, heritage and public culture, social memory and the anthropology of Africa, heritage and memory, and cultural heritage during Mali's one-party state era. These are followed by a description of the methodology used in the study and an overview of the subsequent chapters.