MEASURE OF EMPTINESS: Grain Elevators in the...

MEASURE OF EMPTINESS: Grain Elevators in the American Landscape by Frank Gohlke, with a concluding essay by John C. Hudson (Johns Hopkins: $29.95). Gohlke’s dramatic black-and-white photographs emphasize the contrast between these enormous towers of metal and concrete and the emptiness of the surrounding plains. The vacant sweep of the land confirms Gertrude Stein’s observation, “In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.” The reader’s awareness of the farm crisis of the ‘80s adds layers of meaning to these pictures, transforming the erstwhile symbols of agricultural plenty into poignant witnesses of bleak despair.