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A review by jordh
Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of the World's Greatest Lost Buildings by James Crawford
3.0
Some books you live with for a while. They are with you everywhere you go. They're a companion who entertains you, who's annoying, with whom you quarrel, but who's never boring. For me, this was such a book. And quarrel we did.
I found the premise of this book very interesting: to try and talk about a society through the buildings they made. When it works, the book's brilliant. For example, in the chapter named London was, but it is no more, James Crawford uses the religious space which eventually becomes the St. Paul's Cathedral to talk about the evolution of London society. Every piece he presents falls effortlessly in place. Here Crawford is at his best: precise, deliberate, and confident. Unfortunately, the concept only works about one third of the book. Whether it's the buildings he chooses, the stories he wants to tell, or a combination of both I find hard to decide, but quite often the connections he makes feel contrived. With a lot of stories he meanders and gets lost in all the interesting things he wants to share. He does not always resurface unscratched. With some chapters I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say.
Some books, when they're different from what I expect become too frustrating to read, so infuriating it becomes they're missing a point, or taking a wrong turn. This book is not one of them. There are too many interesting nuggets in here to be annoyed at Crawford getting side-tracked. Fallen Glory is a sympathetic book.
The blurb reads: "As he pieces together the fragments of the past, Crawford asks what history's scattered fragments tell us about our future." This is rather misguiding. If you want to understand more about the future of our (Western) society, read [b:The Silk Roads: A New History of the World|25812847|The Silk Roads A New History of the World|Peter Frankopan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472636067s/25812847.jpg|45425898] by [a:Peter Frankopan|3185055|Peter Frankopan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1464911422p2/3185055.jpg].
I found the premise of this book very interesting: to try and talk about a society through the buildings they made. When it works, the book's brilliant. For example, in the chapter named London was, but it is no more, James Crawford uses the religious space which eventually becomes the St. Paul's Cathedral to talk about the evolution of London society. Every piece he presents falls effortlessly in place. Here Crawford is at his best: precise, deliberate, and confident. Unfortunately, the concept only works about one third of the book. Whether it's the buildings he chooses, the stories he wants to tell, or a combination of both I find hard to decide, but quite often the connections he makes feel contrived. With a lot of stories he meanders and gets lost in all the interesting things he wants to share. He does not always resurface unscratched. With some chapters I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say.
Some books, when they're different from what I expect become too frustrating to read, so infuriating it becomes they're missing a point, or taking a wrong turn. This book is not one of them. There are too many interesting nuggets in here to be annoyed at Crawford getting side-tracked. Fallen Glory is a sympathetic book.
The blurb reads: "As he pieces together the fragments of the past, Crawford asks what history's scattered fragments tell us about our future." This is rather misguiding. If you want to understand more about the future of our (Western) society, read [b:The Silk Roads: A New History of the World|25812847|The Silk Roads A New History of the World|Peter Frankopan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472636067s/25812847.jpg|45425898] by [a:Peter Frankopan|3185055|Peter Frankopan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1464911422p2/3185055.jpg].