Ancient civilisations in Vietnam, the lost cities of the Amazon, the
cities and towns of humankind have fought for space against the
overwhelming power of nature. We think we've mastered it, but
discoveries across the world show abandoned cities, their proud
buildings now flooded, overtaken by the forests, nature taking back what
once was its own, with the slow, relentlessness of time.
But there are modern places too, towns built by corrupt local officials
that were never occupied, amusement parks closed due to terrible
tragedy, settlements sinking ineluctably into the mud, cities destroyed
by radiation, these are the remnants of a generation, an entire society
wiped from the earth, leaving only dismembered traces of memory.
This exotic, powerful new book evokes the eerie, haunted places that
retain small touches of humanity: a car with only one wheel, a battered
doll, torn shirts on a washing line, a broken ferris wheel, all of them
are shattered dreams that dwell now only in the imagination.