An erudite meditation on ruins and their romantic and philosophical evocations. After some general observations in the initial pages, the book settles into a travelogue of famous sites with descriptions of their decaying state by the author, along with liberal quotations from earlier belletrists. Macaulay's love of ruins in their natural state, without restoration or sanitizing, captures the allure of these moldering structures.

The text rambles as one ruin blends with another and it lacks structure. This is a book for browsing and savoring rather than for reading from cover to cover. ( )