1800s
1900s
19th century
911
A01=Nick Yablon
abandoned
academic
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
america
american
archaeological
archaeologist
archaeology
art
Author_Nick Yablon
automatic-update
blight
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=HBLL
Category=HBTB
Category=JBSD
Category=JFSG
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
cities
city
contemporary
COP=United States
cultural
decay
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
desolation
economic
economy
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnicity
failure
foreclosure
historical
history
labor
Language_English
literature
modern
modernity
myth
neighborhood
PA=Available
pop culture
postapocalyptic
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
ruins
scholarly
softlaunch
technological
technology
united states
urban
usa
Product details
- ISBN 9780226946641
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 15 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Feb 2010
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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American urban ruins have become increasingly prominent, whether in debates about home foreclosures, images of 9/11, or postapocalyptic movies. Nick Yablon argues that this association between American cities and ruins dates back to a much earlier period in the nation's history. Recovering numerous scenes of urban desolation - from accounts of failed banks, abandoned towns, and dilapidated tenements to popular fiction and cartoons that envisioned disintegrating skyscrapers and bridges - Yablon challenges the myth that ruins were absent or at least insignificant objects in nineteenth-century America. Unlike classical and Gothic ruins, which decayed over centuries and inspired philosophical meditations about the past, American ruins often appeared unpredictably and disappeared before they could accrue an aura of age. In doing so, they generated critical reflections about contemporary cities, and the new kinds of experience they enabled.
Unearthing evocative depictions of these untimely ruins everywhere from the archives of photography clubs to the pages of pulp magazines, Yablon reconstructs crucial debates about America's economic, technological, and cultural transformation in an age of urban modernity.
Nick Yablon is assistant professor of American studies at the University of Iowa.
