New World's Old World - Hardcover

May Castleberry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826329713 ISBN 13: 9780826329714

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, 2003

Synopsis

This book showcases the remarkable work of photographers who have captured the archaeological landscapes of ancient American cultures from the dawn of photography to the current day. Through essays and descriptive entries on specific sites, the volume demonstrates how photography serves science by conserving structures and masterpieces of the Americas' past, in addition to being an independent artistic medium. Most of the places shown here have been inhabited continuously since contact or rebuilt over ancient sites. Where some nineteenth-century photographers uncovered jumbles of stone smothered in vegetation, their successors contemplated sites altered by excavation, restoration, earthquakes and floods, vandalism, and the encroachment of settlements that obscure or obliterate ancient structures.

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Review:

""The New World's Old World: Photographic Views of Ancient America" is a book of excellent, pioneering-to-modern, black-and-white photographs of important archaeological structures and landscapes in the Americas." "These photos, taken from the 1870s through the 1990s . . . show the Inca ruins high up in the Andes at Machu Picchu, the Mayan temples in the Yucatan and cliff dwellings in the American Southwest, among much else. In some instances the photographs record monuments before vandalism and erosion diminished them." "This handsome, haunting volume, ably edited by Castleberry, engages the reader on many levels. It is no simple 'Fifty Must-see sites.' It presents an array of evocative photographs of Southwestern USA, Mesoamerican, and Andean South American sites." "A handsome new book, "New World's Old World: Photographic Views of Ancient America," showcases the efforts of pioneer photographers who have attempted to capture on film the haunting beauty of many of these early cultural sites. . . This is an exceptional book." "A handsome new book, "New World's Old World: Photographic Views of Ancient America", showcases the efforts of pioneer photographers who have attempted to capture on film the haunting beauty of many of these early cultural sites. . . This is an exceptional book."

About this edition

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0826329713
• ISBN 13: 9780826329714
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280