This book examines two mid-nineteenth century thinkers - the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter and the French architect Eugène E. Viollet-le-Duc - who imagined cultural history on the model of earth history: as a history of objects to be restored and worlds to be reconstructed. The nascent field of geology shaped cultural thought; their conservationism, informed by erosion, envisions a future of restorative renewal.

Timothy Attanucci, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany.