Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook304 pages4 hours
Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten
By Kate Brown
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
“Why are Kazakhstan and Montana the same place?” asks one chapter of Kate Brown’s surprising and unusual journey into the histories of places on the margins, overlooked or erased. It turns out that a ruined mining town in Kazakhstan and Butte, Montana—America’s largest environmental Superfund site—have much more in common than one would think thanks to similarities in climate, hucksterism, and the perseverance of their few hardy inhabitants. Taking readers to these and other unlikely locales, Dispatches from Dystopia delves into the very human and sometimes very fraught ways we come to understand a particular place, its people, and its history.
In Dispatches from Dystopia, Brown wanders the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation, first on the Internet and then in person, to figure out which version—the real or the virtual—is the actual forgery. She also takes us to the basement of a hotel in Seattle to examine the personal possessions left in storage by Japanese-Americans on their way to internment camps in 1942. In Uman, Ukraine, we hide with Brown in a tree in order to witness the annual male-only Rosh Hashanah celebration of Hasidic Jews. In the Russian southern Urals, she speaks with the citizens of the small city of Kyshtym, where invisible radioactive pollutants have mysteriously blighted lives. Finally, Brown returns home to Elgin, Illinois, in the midwestern industrial rust belt to investigate the rise of “rustalgia” and the ways her formative experiences have inspired her obsession with modernist wastelands.
Dispatches from Dystopia powerfully and movingly narrates the histories of locales that have been silenced, broken, or contaminated. In telling these previously unknown stories, Brown examines the making and unmaking of place, and the lives of the people who remain in the fragile landscapes that are left behind.
In Dispatches from Dystopia, Brown wanders the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation, first on the Internet and then in person, to figure out which version—the real or the virtual—is the actual forgery. She also takes us to the basement of a hotel in Seattle to examine the personal possessions left in storage by Japanese-Americans on their way to internment camps in 1942. In Uman, Ukraine, we hide with Brown in a tree in order to witness the annual male-only Rosh Hashanah celebration of Hasidic Jews. In the Russian southern Urals, she speaks with the citizens of the small city of Kyshtym, where invisible radioactive pollutants have mysteriously blighted lives. Finally, Brown returns home to Elgin, Illinois, in the midwestern industrial rust belt to investigate the rise of “rustalgia” and the ways her formative experiences have inspired her obsession with modernist wastelands.
Dispatches from Dystopia powerfully and movingly narrates the histories of locales that have been silenced, broken, or contaminated. In telling these previously unknown stories, Brown examines the making and unmaking of place, and the lives of the people who remain in the fragile landscapes that are left behind.
Unavailable
Related to Dispatches from Dystopia
Related ebooks
Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1949–56 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVanishing Streets: Journeys in London Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edge city: Driving the periphery of São Paulo. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Utopia's Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wild Girl, Natural Man, and the Monster: Dangerous Experiments in the Age of Enlightenment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMuseums of Communism: New Memory Sites in Central and Eastern Europe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Society of Young Women: Opportunities of Place, Power, and Reform in Saudi Arabia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCurating (Post-)Socialist Environments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavigating Austerity: Currents of Debt along a South Asian River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Nostalgia Was: War, Empire, and the Time of a Deadly Emotion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesert Memories: Desert Memories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Risen from Ruins: The Cultural Politics of Rebuilding East Berlin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory of a Disappearance: The Story of a Forgotten Polish Town Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barbed-Wire Imperialism: Britain's Empire of Camps, 1876-1903 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPravda Ha Ha: Truth, Lies and the End of Europe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Casino Women: Courage in Unexpected Places Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAcross the plaza. The public voids of the post-soviet city Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blue Urbanism: Exploring Connections Between Cities and Oceans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Human Flow: Stories from the Global Refugee Crisis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNine Lives A Journey through Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelling Our Death Masks: Cash-For-Gold in the Age of Austerity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIt's Only a Joke, Comrade!: Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Maninbo: Peace & War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Scientific Journal: Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exquisite Materials: Episodes in the Queer History of Victorian Style Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTokyo: A Spatial Anthropology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Essays & Travelogues For You
One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition: An Alaskan Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet How to Be A Travel Writer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5She Explores: Stories of Life-Changing Adventures on the Road and in the Wild Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Trip of One's Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why Traveling Solo Could Change Your Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Island Wisdom: Hawaiian Traditions and Practices for a Meaningful Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGoing into Town: A Love Letter to New York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Holiday in North Korea: The Funniest/Worst Place on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neither here nor there: Travels in Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paris Letters: A Travel Memoir about Art, Writing, and Finding Love in Paris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys: Recipes, Techniques, and Traditions from around the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Best American Travel Writing 2016 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unseen Body: A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Philosophy of Walking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lonely Planet An Innocent Abroad: Life-Changing Trips from 35 Great Writers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vagabonding on a Budget: The New Art of World Travel and True Freedom: Live on Your Own Terms Without Being Rich Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFucked at Birth: Recalibrating the American Dream for the 2020s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Innocents Abroad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Dispatches from Dystopia
Rating: 4.071428571428571 out of 5 stars
4/5
7 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An utterly engrossing contemporary history of forgotten and destroyed places.