The Destruction of Memory

Crumbled shells of mosques in Iraq, the fall of the World Trade Center towers on 11 September 2009: when architectural totems such as these are destroyed by conflicts and the ravages of war, more than mere buildings are at stake. The Destruction of Memory  reveals the extent to which a nation weds itself to its landscape; Robert Bevan argues that such destruction not only shatters a nation's culture and morale but is also a deliberate act of eradicating a culture's memory and, ultimately, existence.