Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of Twenty Lost Buildings from the Tower of Babel to the Twin Towers - Hardcover

James Crawford

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1908699930 ISBN 13: 9781908699930

Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

Buildings are more like us than we realise. 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 civilisation 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.
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.

CONTENTS
Introduction
Part One: Gods, Heroes and Monsters
1 Make A Name for Yourself!
The Tower of Babel, Iraq (Born 5,000 BC - Died 323 BC)
2 Modernism's Labyrinth
The Palace of King Minos, Knossos, Crete (Born 1900 BC - Died 1400 BC)
3 The First War Memorial
The Citadel of Mycenae - The Plain of Argos, Greece (Born 1700 BC - Died 1150 BC)
4 The Sun City Also Rises
Akhetaten, Amarna - Egypt (Born 1348 BC - Died 1331 BC)
5 Jerusalem Syndrome
The Temple of Jerusalem (Born 950 BC - Died AD 70)
Part Two: On the Unhappiness of Empires
6 The Rise, Decline and Fall of the Cow Pasture
The Forum - Rome (Born 735 BC - Died AD 500)
7 The Library of Babel
The Library of Alexandria - Egypt (Born 300 BC - Died AD 650)
8 Anarchy's Theatre
The Hippodrome of Constantinople (Born AD 200 Died 1500 AD)
9 The Carpet of the World
Madinat al-Zahra, Cordoba - Spain (Born AD 936 - Died AD 1010)
Part Three: The King is Dead, Long Live the King
10 London Was, But Is No More
Old St Paul's Cathedral - London (Born 1087 AD - Died 1666 AD)
11 Journey to the Tent at the Centre of the World
Karakorum - Orkhon Valley, Mongolia (Born 1220 - Died 1388)
12 The House of Diamonds
The Fortress of Golconda - Hyderabad, India (Born 1300 - Died 1700)
13 Liberté for Sale
The Bastille - Paris (Born 1356 - Died 1789)
14 Virtual City
Vilcabamba, Espiritu Pampa - Peru (Born 1539 - Died 1572)
Part Four: You Say Utopia, I Say Dystopia
15 Little Brother's Big Brother House
The St Petersburg Panopticon - Okhta, Russia (Born 1806 Died 1818)
16 No-Man's City
Kowloon Walled City - Kowloon, Hong Kong (Born 1843 - Died 1994)
17 The Day the Architecture Died
Pruitt-Igoe - St Louis, Missouri (Born 1951 - Died 1976)
18 The Mirrorwall
The Berlin Wall - Berlin, East and West Germany (Born 1961 - Died 1989)
19 No Day Shall Erase You From the Memory of Time
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre - New York City (Born 1973-Died 2001)
20 The Deleted City
GeoCities - The World Wide Web (Born 1994-Died 2009)

About this title

Review:

'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

'The most interesting book I have come across this year. This is a magnificent study of buildings and other structures that have disappeared. Crawford writes beautifully and tells a fascinating tale that embraces the Library of Alexandria, the Berlin Wall and, in the virtual world, the now defunct Geocities. A lovely, wise book.'
Alexander McCall Smith, NEW STATESMAN

'Magnificent ... Many of these buildings can be seen as microcosms of the decline and fall of whole civilisations'
DAILY TELEGRAPH(***** 5-star review)

'Crawford has a striking ability to summon the reality of these long-vanished places, trotting nimbly through eras of history and archaeology to trace the extent to which they protrude into fact ... [he] writes exquisitely, combining economy and clarity with beautiful flights of phrase, and his scholarship is meticulous. Fallen Glory is a marvellous book. A second helping would be more than welcome.'
LITERARY REVIEW

'Crawford tells the intricate biography of each of his buildings with the unspoken assumption that in some way a building (like the city in which it exists) is alive . . . The result is 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 marvellous clattering snooker-table'
THE SPECTATOR

'Delightful and intriguing ... each building and city with which it is associated is a keyhole into a panorama of the times ... a succinct and smart overview of crucial points in human history ... The chapter on the Twin Towers is one of the best such pieces I have read'
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

'Read a chapter a night and set up camp in Genghis Khan's tented cities and pace the Forum of Ancient Rome at leisure. This is a beautiful book, and an admirable monument to the most spectacular buildings man's ingenuity and ambition have ever raised'
MAIL ON SUNDAY

'Crawford is a striking storyteller ... [his] description of a postman's round in Kowloon's walled city and of oddball Yale alumni discovering the Peruvian Inca capital of Vilcabamba typify his resoundingly fine writing ... a clever and endearing book'
THE TIMES

'Utterly compelling ... a fascinating read'
THE LADY

'Subtle, ambitious, well-researched . . . It is the people who built, lived in, destroyed, rediscovered, excavated and rebuilt the buildings he has chosen which stimulate . . . Crawford manages the difficult feat of engaging each of his chosen buildings with an equal degree of passion and engagement'
HISTORY TODAY

'A terrific piece of historical detective work, full of twists and surprises. Each building represents a fascinating moment in history, and the people and events that created and destroyed them are brought thrillingly to life.'
JOHN GRINDROD, author of CONCRETOPIA

'An enthralling piece of detective work'
THE BOOKSELLER (picked as a 'Non-Fiction Autumn Highlight') --...

About this edition

• Publisher: Old Street Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1908699930
• ISBN 13: 9781908699930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 576