A review by ehays84
Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of Twenty Lost Buildings from the Tower of Babel to the Twin Towers by James Crawford

4.0

This was an interesting book, and I would say it fits pretty squarely into the category of solid works of public history. It's a little unique in that it was kind of a chore to get through because of how long it is, but each of the chapters for each of the buildings (applied loosely) was only vignette length.

None of the stories were entirely new to me, a couple I knew enough about to quibble a bit with his history. Still, it made a fun walk through history from even prehistorical times up to the present.

Probably the book's most valuable contribution is in helping the reader think about the relationship between buildings and the people who create and use them. Are buildings more a reflection of people, or are people a reflection of buildings? I'd lean more towards the first of course, but it is interesting to see the impact of some of these buildings on people, even if they didn't last very long.