Amongst the Ruins: Why Civilizations Collapse and Communities Disappear

Lost Civilizations is a thought-provoking exploration of how and why heritage disappears, through seventeen architectural and archaeological sites. Themes of war, climate change, natural disaster, human self-destruction and simple economics are brought together through a collection of compelling stories of fallen or lost places. Using examples from every continent, the book presents a mixture of well-known historic icons - places such as Abu Simbel in Egypt, Carthage in Tunisia and Petra in Jordan - alongside sites and landscapes that will be new to the majority of readers. Concentrating on people and events, the book is broad in scope while tackling serious, relevant and important topics. As a leader at World Monuments Fund, John Darlington has been directly involved in many of the seventeen examples explored in the book, affording an unusual depth of access to archives, people and stories.