Dead Tech. A Guide to the Archaeology of Tomorrow [Paperback]

Manfred Hamm (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

DEAD TECH is more than a book on industrial archaeology. The decay of our industrial monuments is both beautiful and sad. Hamm captures the decline of our mechanized age as he documents wartime gun emplacements, steam locomotives, collapsing piers, decommissioned aircraft carriers, abandoned coal and steel plants, and the grim piles of nuclear power plants. Dead Tech documents the deconstruction of the hubristic monuments of war and capitalism that surround us.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Hennessey & Ingalls (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 094051222X
• ISBN-13: 978-0940512221
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 10.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,859,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, June 25, 2006

By 

S. Shipman (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Tech. A Guide to the Archaeology of Tomorrow (Paperback)

Dead Tech -A Guide to the Archaeology of Tomorrow dates from 1981, with the English version in 1982 and a 2000 reprinting. Its coverage of dead factories, rail-yards, harbors, and aircraft boneyards is a disappointment. Manfred Hamm's inconsistent mixture of black & white and color photographs give the book a disjointed feeling. The quality of the photographs themselves is inconsistent. A few rise to the level art exhibited by Stanley Greenberg (Invisible New York) and Christopher Payne (New York's Forgotten Substations), while most are no better than I (a decidedly amateur photographer) might have done in a hurry with my trusty Pentax K1000 and a roll of T-Max 100 or Ektachrome 64. The accompanying text by Rolf Steinberg is noisome -- perhaps a victim of a less-than-artful translation into English. I haven't yet decided whether I will hold on to this book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Amateur Pictures; Overly Emotional, Whiny Text, June 1, 2007

By 

TMB (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead Tech. A Guide to the Archaeology of Tomorrow (Paperback)

I just got this book today. I flipped through it and was not at all impressed with the photography. Any amateur could take those shots. Then I started to read it. The first section of text, "The Ruins Complex" by Robert Jungk is terrible. As a scientist I was unspeakably annoyed at his melodramatic, disparaging attitude towards R&D and his overall theme that all technology is facing imminent breakdown resulting in possible inconvenience but more likely disaster. Throw this book on your coffee table if you want visitors to think you have poor tastes. On top of it all, the book seems to be poorly bound. My copy looks to be in excellent condition but I can see the thread holding the pages in and it feels like its going to come apart every time I flip a page. Skip it, its not worth even the shipping costs.

4.0 out of 5 stars picture of tomorrow, October 11, 2011

By 

michael helsem "graywyvern" (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dead Tech. A Guide to the Archaeology of Tomorrow (Paperback)

I bought this book because i recognized the "Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center" (near Tucson) as the airfield which becomes a huge artwork in DeLillo's great novel Underworld.

Not so much an addition to the budding photo-genre of Urban Ruins, as a picture of how our industrial age is going to look to the denizens of the age subsequent, whatever they will call it.

It is good to think on these things, amidst our ongoing welter of tiny crises & incessant static; the text makes all the implicit politics overt, but can be dispensed with.

I like the casualness of the photographs themselves: not Ansel Adams but a tad arch, pseudo-touristy. As if they were bound toward some fiercer rendezvous, & happened to have a day free.

As perhaps they are.

m.