Discover how modern life is defined by constant creation, abandonment and collapse, and why ruins are no longer relics of the past but a defining feature of the present.
This is the age of ruins. The wreckage of our speeding, super-sized era can be found on the Moon, at the bottom of the sea, in the internet's haunted attics, in desecrated jungles and in abandoned shopping malls. We live amid the accumulating debris of an economy that never stops producing, creating mountains of things that rarely last.
Unlike the reassuring relics of the past, today's ruins are unsettled and unstable. They are not fixed in time, but shifting, uncertain and often reversible: virtual worlds can be rebooted, retail parks revived, ecosystems rebuilt.
Across 21 case studies, New Ruins explores:
Together, these places reveal a world where obsolescence and ruination are built into modern life.
Step into the unsettling reality of New Ruins and discover why you will never see the world - or its ruins - in the same way again.
| ISBN: | 9781805703228 |
| Publication date: | 8th October 2026 |
| Author: | Alastair Bonnett |
| Publisher: | Ivy Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 192 pages |
| Genres: |
Social and cultural history Places and peoples: general and pictorial works History of architecture |
Discover how modern life is defined by constant creation, abandonment and collapse, and why ruins are no longer relics of the past but a defining feature of the present.
This is the age of ruins. The wreckage of our speeding, super-sized era can be found on the Moon, at the bottom of the sea, in the internet's haunted attics, in desecrated jungles and in abandoned shopping malls. We live amid the accumulating debris of an economy that never stops producing, creating mountains of things that rarely last.
Unlike the reassuring relics of the past, today's ruins are unsettled and unstable. They are not fixed in time, but shifting, uncertain and often reversible: virtual worlds can be rebooted, retail parks revived, ecosystems rebuilt.
Across 21 case studies, New Ruins explores:
Together, these places reveal a world where obsolescence and ruination are built into modern life.
Step into the unsettling reality of New Ruins and discover why you will never see the world - or its ruins - in the same way again.
New Ruins features in the following genres: Historical maps and atlases, Geographical reference works, Places and peoples: general and pictorial works
New Ruins is available in Hardback
New Ruins was written by Alastair Bonnett and published by Ivy Press
New Ruins has 192 pages
£18.00