A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America [Hardcover]

David Plowden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2005

An elegy for our changing landscape by a master photographer.

Since making his earliest documentary photographs in the 1950s, David Plowden has honored those proud structures and places that America has discarded; from brawny commercial and industrial centers to small towns and farms. He reveres the honest work and spirit that built them. But the scene has changed much in the last five decades, and what's left of the honesty of small communities and the working of the land is all but gone, dealt a death blow by outsourcing, conglomerization, and our incessant drive to buy cheap at any cost. The America of these photographs is a bittersweet reminder of things once cherished and a life no longer possible. Deserted Main Streets and crumbling facades stare at us blindly. Abandoned houses and buildings reach back to ground. Plowden's work is a sad symphony; incomparably and irresistibly beautiful, while reminding us of our loss. 77 duotone photographs

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For more than 40 years, Plowden has been documenting abandoned farms, withered towns, and the last remnants of America's agricultural and industrial preeminence. He says he often arrives to photograph just ahead of the wrecking ball, and his introduction to this set of black-and-white images from throughout his career is a litany of buildings gone and people no longer working where he photographed them 15, 25, and more years ago. Because the element binding these pictures is their provenance in the agricultural heartland stretching from northern New England through western New York and Pennsylvania and the Midwest to Kansas, Plowden's ruefulness and the elegiac nature of the photos have a political edge. Was it inevitable that family farms and rural businesses vanished after World War II? Or was it merely expedient, and for whom? The aesthetic distinction of these pictures, including such details resonant of a vital past as the crossing signs Iron St and Zinc St. on a pole in front of an abandoned building in Ontonagon, Michigan, ensures long life to such questions. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

David Plowden is the author of more than twenty photography books, including Bridges: The Spans of North America, Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography, and Requiem for Steam. He lives in Winnetka, Illinois.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (December 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393060330
• ISBN-13: 978-0393060331
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 11.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,189,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Each page is a whole chapter, June 18, 2007

By 

J. A. Rake (WIsconsin) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America (Hardcover)

This is a gorgeous book. If a picture is normally worth a thousand words, Plowden's images are each whole chapters. They convey so much both by what they show and by what they leave out. Skillfully taken and carefully printed, they contain a sumptuous wealth of detail which forces the viewer to linger on each image and contemplate it. Plowden is an American master.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Plowden Delight, October 3, 2007

By 

David Mainey (Katonah, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America (Hardcover)

David Plowden, in "A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America," continues his remarkable success in being one of the most significant, contemporary visual historians of America's fast disappearing past. His evocative images of marginal, often abandoned and disintegrating buildings and structures poignantly reminds us both of the transient nature of human endeavor and of the necessity of such endeavor in every age upon which society depends. In addition to providing grist for philosophical insights and musings, his meticulously composed images offer the viewer strong, black and white patterns and details that invite closer scrutiny and discovery.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Handful of Dust: A wonderful photographic documentary, October 29, 2007

By 

William R. White "Serious Photographer" (Dahlonega, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America (Hardcover)

David Plowden continues his trend of excellently photographing the America of times past, providing us with superbly photographed subjects and commentary on our fading history. For those in love with a kinder, gentler America and who grew up in a small town like myself, these vignettes will help you preserve your fondest memories, yet, will leave you with a feeling of sadness at the passage of time.
This book should be in the library of any serious documentary, architectural or other type of photographer.