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.

Coda: Remaking Poetic Modernism after a Culture of Mass Print -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y

Excerpt from Rhymes of the Rockies, or What the Poets Have Found to Say of the Beautiful Scenery on the Denver Rio Grande Railroad, the Scenic Line of the World Palmer Lake W. E. Pabor. Serene and sweet and smiling as a bride Nestles Lake Palmer on the green Divide; The hills around it, the blue sky above, The summer sunshine bathing it in love; Fair as the lochs that lie in Scotia's glens, Worthy the praise that comes from poets' pens. Its sparkling waters in the sunshine gleam Full of the glamour of the sweetest dream. Toward the sunset, in the green defile, The pine trees rustle and the wild flowers smile; The crystal waters of the creek flow by, White as the snows that on the mountains lie; Within the shadow bits of sunshine rest Like diamonds gleaming from an umber nest; Wild roses blush at kisses given by bees And black-birds twitter underneath the trees. The waters ripple to the lake's green shore, Timing the dipping of the boatman's oar; The fountain glistens in the sun's warm beams, The white spray falling down in rainbow streams; The air is full of melody and sound, Voices float out as if from fairy ground, And all our thoughts to happy fancies run Under the languor of the summer sun. Oh! lake of beauty, glen of sweet content! On the headwaters of the Monument; The hills that hide thee, and each bosky dell That nestles near thee, but one story tell; To those who love fair Nature when she waits And smiles a welcome at the open gates, Where Pleasure stands to lead to leaf-robed nooks And sweet delights we cannot find in books. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.