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Americans have been fascinated by ruins as symbols of the past and now as symbols of the future.
Empire of Ruins tells the story of what ruins have meant to Americans and how their representation in photography--often both beautiful and terrifying--has shaped their meaning.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Romance of Ruins
- Chapter 2: Pueblo Utopias
- Chapter 3: Things Fall Apart: Modernity and Entropy
- Chapter 4: Creative Destruction
- Chapter 5: Destroying Modernity
- Chapter 6: The Atomic Landscape
- Chapter 7: The Industrial Landscape
- Chapter 8: The Apocalyptic Landscape
- Conclusion: Looking Backward and Looking Forward: The Course of Empire
- Notes
- Index
About the author
Miles Orvell is Professor of English and American Studies at Temple University. He is the author of The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940, American Photography (OUP, 2003), and The Death and Life of Main Street: Small Towns in American Memory, Space, and Community. Orvell received the Bode-Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement from the American Studies Association.
Summary
Americans have been fascinated by ruins as symbols of the past and now as symbols of the future. Empire of Ruins tells the story of what ruins have meant to Americans and how their representation in photography--often both beautiful and terrifying--has shaped their meaning.
Additional text
Empire of Ruins is about image-making; about ruins as motifs for various kinds of specialist or popular media...Orvell's book arrives at a moment when understanding the history, the lure, and the critical potential of ruin images will most certainly not become less urgent.
