Main entry:

Yablon, Nick.

Title & Author:

Untimely ruins : an archaeology of American urban modernity, 1819-1919 / Nick Yablon.

Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Description:

xiii, 380 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: Of light bulbs and bathtubs: excavating the modern city -- Crumbling columns and day-old ruins: specters of antiquity on the American grand tour, 1819-1837 -- "Even Eden, you know, ain't all built": paper cities, British investors, and the ruins of Cairo, Illinois, 1837-1844 -- The petrified city: antiquity and modernity in Melville's New York, 1835-1865 -- Relapsing into barbarism: labor, ethnicity, and ruin in prospective histories of urban America, 1865-1906 -- "Plagued by their own inventions": reframing the technological ruins of San Francisco, 1906-1909 -- The metropolitan life in ruins: architectural and fictional speculations in New York, 1893-1919 -- Epilogue: Toward the posthuman ruin.

Summary:

This is an extended meditation on the meanings of American ruins which explains why they are distinctive, what they reveal, and how they matter.

ISBN:

9780226946634 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780226946641 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
0226946630 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0226946649 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Cities and towns United States History 19th century.
American literature 19th century History and criticism.
Ruins in literature.
Ruins in art.
Villes États-Unis Histoire 19e siècle.
Littérature américaine 19e siècle Histoire et critique.
Ruines dans la littérature.
Ruines dans l'art.
American literature.
Cities and towns.
Literature.
New York (N.Y.) In literature.
Cairo (Ill.) History 19th century.
San Francisco (Calif.) History 20th century.
California San Francisco.
Illinois Cairo.
New York (State) New York.
United States.

Form/genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 266529
Call No.: BIB 198456
Status: Available