Fallen Glory, James Crawford
Fallen Glory, James Crawford
1 Rating(s)
List: $27.50 | Sale: $19.25
Club: $13.75

Fallen Glory
The Lives and Deaths of History's Greatest Buildings

Author: James Crawford

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 20 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/07/2017


Synopsis

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.

About James Crawford

James Crawford is a historian, publisher, and broadcaster. He worked at Scotland's National Collection of Architecture and Archaeology for over a decade and is the writer and presenter of the BBC One documentary series Scotland from the Sky. He lives in Edinburgh.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Penny

A brilliant idea - the story of 20 different buildings that are either lost or in ruins "from the dawn of civilisation to the cyber age". It's a big book, nearly 550 pages, and it seemed to take me a good while to work through. However it is never anything less than fascinating, and its taught me so......more

Goodreads review by Louai

The almost-perfect book: a tantalizing fusion of history, geography, architecture, religion, science and philosophy. The stories of 20 bygone buildings is told in a captivating fashion; from the Temple of Solomon to the World Trade Center towers. The author is exceptionally gifted at making analogie......more

Goodreads review by Steven

An absolutely fascinating book! It explores buildings, cities, and other architectural creations from millennia B.C. up to much more recent times. It explores the discovery process of the varying constructions, a slice of history about these, an analysis of what the particular story might tell us. Th......more

Goodreads review by MJE

This very well written compendium of 20 fallen structures combines history, archeology, architecture, and geography into 20 wonderful essays. Very much worth reading for entertainment and education. Take your time with each chapter and use Google Earth to geographically place the locations you are u......more