"The book enacts a lovely and compelling labor of making the past present, but also of making the present unfold itself and open itself to history: 'one is always in search of the kind of phenomena that might, potentially, confer sense upon one's own existence.' The book's purpose, one might say, is to unfold the phenomena brought to hand—to convert that 'potential.' Its triumph is that it largely confers sense upon the phenomena—an activity which, in turn, may turn out to be the activity that confers sense upon one's own existence."—Joshua Clover, author of The Totality for Kids

"I feel as though I just walked across southern France from 27 B.C. to 1200 A.D. accompanied by a really smart, articulate, and avid local insider. Along the way Gustaf Sobin introduced me to monks, potters, stonemasons, architects, glass blowers, and farmers still using late Neolithic methods, wood cutters, and salt dryers. He evokes detailed and rounded lost worlds from some of the most paltry materials, such as the spray of droplets cast off by glass blowing. It is a masterpiece on several levels. Perhaps the reader should be warned not to open the book unless there are several days of free time available. It is almost impossible to put it down."—Dean MacCannell, author of The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class