I could write a book as long about how awesome this book is. Only pissed that no one shoved it in my paws at 15 instead of finding it by chance up in King Library at 35. A book that I sincerely wish all residents of purportedly democratic western societies were MADE to read, as young as intellectually possible. It gives me the same thrill now that Morning of the Magicians gave me at 20 and Cosmic Trigger at 30: the thrill of having found a voice that both has the scholarship (and in Volney's case the damned language chops, having learned Arabic as his contemporaries firmly refused to) and the ETHICS to pull off that kind of work of history, intending for the audience to better itself in reading. I'm happy that I otherwise learned so much of the stuff he found in the 780s by myself, and that made the book a fun treasure hunt, but if only I'd known sooner. May we all be as sharp as Volney in everything we consider. NOTICE I read the Black Classics reprint, which is clean and elegant, not the 2018 facsimile. ( )

While in Paris, Thomas Jefferson seriously imperiled his political future by secretly joining with the noted anti- slavery poet and founder of ''the[ American Mercury]", [[Joel Barlow]] to provide his friend [[Constantin-Francois Volney]] with an English translation of The Ruins: Or a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires, a translation from the French Les Ruines ou Meditations sur les Revolutions des Empires, published in 1796 by William A. Davis, in New York. This is an admittedly radical work even by today's Liberal standards. Maybe that is why it took the[[ University of Virginia]] 185 years to remember that Jefferson had given it not one, but two copies of his personally selected translations of Volney's work.

One copy was presented to the [[Library of Congress]] just in time for it's 200th birthday. This translation of Volney's work is the same edition as the one Jefferson had sold to [[The Library of Congress]] in 1815, but which was sadly lost to flames in 1851.

Mark Dimunation, chief of the [[Rare Book and Special Collections division at the Library of Congress]], has called Volney's work an “important source,..”, “that influenced Jefferson's thinking”. Just think, “Afro-Centric Scholars” (Not an oxymoron) have been teaching for decades that this particular translation of this work is an important primary source. Its taken almost 200 years, but thanks to the ongoing deification of Thomas Jefferson, more mainstream scholars may finally work up the nerve to examine Volney's message in the exact words that President Jefferson chanced so much to pass along.

Rememember that [[George Washington]], [[Thomas Jefferson]],and [[Abraham Lincoln]] all had this work in their libraries.

"Those piles of ruins which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. Behold the wrecks of her metropolis, of Thebes with her hundred palaces, the parent of cities and the monument of the caprice of destiny. There a people, now forgotten, discovered while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature , those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe. Lower down those dusky points are the pyramids whose masses have astonished you. Beyond that, the coast, hemmed in between the sea and a narrow ridge of mountains was the habitation of the Phoenicians. These were the famous cities of Tyre, of Sidon, of Ascalon, of Gaza, and of Berytus. "
Count Constantine Francis Chassebeuf De Volney - 1793 Thomas Jefferson, trans ( )

A repeat of a prior UK translation. Not a Jefferson-Barlow.

This hardback edition from James Miller of New York looks similar in cover design and size to the Josiah Mendum editions of the mid-1880s. There is no date on my copy, but the LT search engine says James Miller published his edition in 1900. Even though the publisher eliminated the phrase "under the imediate inspection of the author" from the title page, this is the Jefferson-Barlow translation. Includes Law of Nature, the Daru biosketch, and the Response to Dr. Priestly (sic). No images. The publisher also took the traditional Preface from Law of Nature and placed it at the front of the book as the Preface for Ruins of Empires--strange, but I guess it works. The Invocation is also located in front of the biosketch--another bizarre feature...Overall this is a very rare and ideosyncratic edition. Small print. A collector's item but not a reading copy.

A very common British English translation published by Allman of London in the 1840s. The first sentence of the Invocation reads: "Solitary ruins, sacred tombs, ye mouldering silent walls, all hail!" Most definitely not the Jefferson-Barlow translation!