Includes bibliographical references (pages 445-579) and index.
Contents:
Introduction. Neo-Roman mimesis and the law of ruin -- After Carthage: the Roman empire and its ruins -- Neo-Roman mimesis: Charles V at Tunis, 1535 -- Neo-Roman mimesis in the modern age: Cook's second voyage to the South Pacific and the French conquest of Egypt and Algeria -- From Germany's anti-Napoleonic barbarians to the ruin gazer scenarios of the conservative revolution -- With the end in mind: the Nazi empire's Neo-Roman mimesis and the ruined stage of Rome -- Romans or Greeks?: Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger -- Epilogue: Anselm Kiefer's Zersetzungen/disarticulations.
Summary:
The Roman Empire has been a source of inspiration and a model for imitation for Western empires practically since the moment Rome fell. Yet, as Julia Hell shows in The Conquest of Ruins, what has had the strongest grip on aspiring imperial imaginations isn’t that empire’s glory but its fall—and the haunting monuments left in its wake. Hell examines centuries of European empire-building—from Charles V in the sixteenth century and Napoleon’s campaigns of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to the atrocities of Mussolini and the Third Reich in the 1930s and ’40s—and sees a similar fascination with recreating the Roman past in the contemporary image. In every case—particularly that of the Nazi regime—the ruins of Rome seem to represent a mystery to be solved: how could an empire so powerful be brought so low? Hell argues that this fascination with the ruins of greatness expresses a need on the part of would-be conquerors to find something to ward off a similar demise for their particular empire.-- Providedbypublisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.