Half a truth is better than none: some unsystematic conjectures about art, disorder, and American experience

Contents

A preliminary note on the lay of the land -- American culture: words or things? -- The trouble with translation -- Urban dispair and the cities' hope -- Architecture as environmental technology -- Democracy, machines, and vernacular design -- The Eiffel tower and the Ferris wheel -- Who's afraid of the machine in the garden?: a footnote to the unwritten history of America's response to technology -- Living in a snapshot world -- Photographs as historical documents -- Design and chaos: the American distrust of art.