Albert Speer, Naram-Sin of Acad, Scipio Emiliano, Irma Schrader, Shang Yang, Stig Dagerman, Sapor I and Bernardo Bellotto are some of the figures who experienced the siege of a city as victors, losers or simple witnesses. Through its portraits, The Use of Ruins reconstructs a history of the world from the perspective offered by the panorama of cities in ruins, from Mesopotamia before writing to Ground Zero in New York after September 11, 2001. Halfway between erudite digression and reverie, Jean-Yves Jouannais erects on the rubble of our memory an inventory that is both whimsical and reasoned of the most heartbreaking and indelible wounds of war.