Main entry:

Orvell, Miles, author.

Title & Author:

Empire of ruins : American culture, photography, and the spectacle of destruction / Miles Orvell.

Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Description:

xii, 265 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 27 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Part 1. The Romance of Ruins -- Chapter 1. In Search of History -- Chapter 2. Pueblo Utopias -- Part 2. Modern Times -- Chapter 3. Things Fall Apart: Modernity and Entropy -- Chapter 4. Creative Destruction -- Chapter 5. Destroying Modernity: The World Trade Center -- Part 3. The World in Ruins -- Chapter 6. Atomic War and the Destructive Sublime -- Chapter 7. Framing the Postmodern Waste Land -- Chapter 8. Picturing Climate Change: "It's the Apocalypse" -- Conclusion. Looking Backward on Tomorrow: The Course of Empire.

Summary:

"Once symbols of the past, ruins have become ubiquitous signs of our future. Americans today encounter ruins in the media on a daily basis--images of abandoned factories and malls, toxic landscapes, devastating fires, hurricanes, and floods. In this sweeping study, Miles Orvell offers a new understanding of the spectacle of ruins in US culture, exploring how photographers, writers, painters, and filmmakers have responded to ruin and destruction, both real and imaginary, in an effort to make sense of the past and envision the future. Empire of Ruins explains why Americans in the nineteenth century yearned for the ruins of Rome and Egypt and how they portrayed a past as ancient and mysterious in the remains of Native American cultures. As the romance of ruins gave way to twentieth-century capitalism, older structures were demolished to make way for grander ones, a process interpreted by artists as a symptom of America's "creative destruction." In the late twentieth century, Americans began to inhabit a perpetual state of ruins, made visible by photographs of decaying inner cities, derelict factories and malls, and the waste lands of the mining industry. This interdisciplinary work focuses on how visual media have transformed disaster and decay into spectacles that compel our moral attention even as they balance horror and beauty. Looking to the future, Orvell considers the visual portrayal of climate ruins as we face the political and ethical responsibilities of our changing world. A wide-ranging work by an acclaimed urban, cultural, and photography scholar, Empire of Ruins offers a provocative and lavishly illustrated look at the American past, present, and future"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780190491604 hardcover
0190491604 hardcover
electronic book
9780190491611
9780197523285
epub
9780190491628

Subject:

Ruins in art.
Ruined buildings Pictorial works.
Ruined buildings Social aspects United States.
Arts and society United States.
Ruines dans l'art.
Ruines Ouvrages illustrés.
Ruines Aspect social États-Unis.
Arts et société États-Unis.
Arts and society
Ruined buildings
United States

Form/genre:

illustrated books.
Illustrated works
Authors' inscriptions. PPA
Ouvrages illustrés.

Added entries:

Oxford scholarship online.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 332220
Call No.: 332220
Copy: 1
Status: Available