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The Lives and Deaths of History's Greatest Buildings
by James Crawford
An inviting, fascinating compendium of twenty-one of history's most famous lost places, from the tower of babel to the twin towers.
Buildings are more like us than we realize. They can be born into wealth or poverty, enjoying every privilege or struggling to make ends meet. They have parents - gods, kings and emperors, governments, visionaries and madmen - as well as friends and enemies. They have duties and responsibilities. They can endure crises of faith and purpose. They can succeed or fail. They can live. And, sooner or later, they die.
In Fallen Glory, James Crawford uncovers the biographies of some of the world's most fascinating lost and ruined buildings, from the dawn of civilization to the cyber era. The lives of these iconic structures are packed with drama and intrigue. Soap operas on the grandest scale, they feature war and religion, politics and art, love and betrayal, catastrophe and hope. Frequently their afterlives have been no less dramatic?their memories used and abused down the millennia for purposes both sacred and profane. They provide the stage for a startling array of characters, including Gilgamesh, the Cretan Minotaur, Agamemnon, Nefertiti, Genghis Khan, Henry VIII, Catherine the Great, Adolf Hitler, and even Bruce Springsteen.
The twenty-one structures Crawford focuses on include The Tower of Babel, The Temple of Jerusalem, The Library of Alexandria, The Bastille, Kowloon Walled City, the Berlin Wall, and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Ranging from the deserts of Iraq, the banks of the Nile and the cloud forests of Peru, to the great cities of Jerusalem, Istanbul, Paris, Rome, London and New York, Fallen Glory is a unique guide to a world of vanished architecture. And, by picking through the fragments of our past, it asks what history's scattered ruins can tell us about our own future.
"Starred Review. A well-written prize for students of history, archaeology, and urban planning." - Kirkus
"Although the book is overly descriptive at times, it's archaeologist approach concludes with a compelling view of the future." - Publishers Weekly
"For a book about buildings, the paucity of illustrations is unfortunate. This will appeal more to social than architectural historians." - Library Journal
"Witty and memorable … moving as well as myth-busting." - Times Literary Supplement (UK)
"The most interesting book I have come across this year ... A lovely, wise book." - New Statesman (UK)
"Civilisations and their buildings, writes Crawford, inevitably succumb to the 'eternal cycle of rise, decline and fall.' He conveys superbly these absorbing tales of hubris, power, violence and decay." - Sunday Times (UK)
"Magnificent...Many of these buildings can be seen as microcosms of the decline and fall of whole civilisations." - Daily Telegraph (5 Star Review; UK)
"[Crawford] writes exquisitely, combining economy and clarity with beautiful flights of phrase, and his scholarship is meticulous. Fallen Glory is a marvelous book. A second helping would be more than welcome." - Literary Review (UK)
"[A] cabinet of curiosities, a book of wonders with unexpected excursions and jubilant and haunting marginalia...Ideas spin off ideas and facts off facts like a marvelous clattering snooker-table." - The Spectator (UK)
This information about Fallen Glory was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Crawford works for Scotland's National Collection of architecture and archaeology. Born in the Shetlands in 1978, he studied History and Philosophy of Law at the University of Edinburgh, winning the Lord President Cooper Memorial Prize. He has previously written a number of photographic books, including Above Scotland: The National Collection of Aerial Photography, Victorian Scotland, Scotland's Landscapes, and Aerofilms: A History of Britain from Above. In 2013, he wrote and acted as design consultant on Telling Scotland's Story, a graphic novel guide to Scottish Archaeology. He lives in Edinburgh.
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