Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Broken Cities: A Historical Sociology of Ruins

Broken Cities: A Historical Sociology of Ruins

Devecka, Martin

Hardcover

Ancient GreeceGeneral SociologyArchitecture History

ISBN10: 1421438410
ISBN13: 9781421438412
Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
Published: Sep 1 2020
Pages: 184
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.10
Language: English

A comparative study of cities that fell into ruin through human involvement.

We have been taught to think of ruins as historical artifacts, relegated to the past by a catastrophic event. Instead, Martin Devecka argues that we should see them as processes taking place over a long present. In Broken Cities, Devecka offers a wide-ranging comparative study of ruination, the process by which monuments, architectural sites, and urban centers decay into ruin over time. Weaving together four case studies--of classical Athens, late antique Rome, medieval Baghdad, and sixteenth-century Mexico City--Devecka shows that ruination is a complex social process largely contingent on changing imperial control rather than the result of immediate or natural events. Drawing on literature, legal texts, epigraphic evidence, and the narratives embodied in monuments and painting, Broken Cities is an expansive and nuanced study that holds great significance for the field of historiography.

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