Socialism in Ruins
Michael Shanks discusses two recent studies of the archaeology of socialist worlds: World Crisis in Ruin: The Archaeology of the Former Soviet Missile Sites in Cuba by Mats Burström, Anders Gustafsson and Håkan Karlsson and Persistent Memories by Elin Andreasssen, Hein B. Bjerck, and Bjørnar Olsen. The photos are deeply striking and hauntingly familiar for anyone who has worked in the former USSR or other now post-socialist communities.