Combining elements of criticism, cultural history and memoir, Patrimonies addresses the questions: How do we take from and give back to those who came before? How have their actions and choices left their mark on us? The instigation for these questions is an awareness of precariousness-people, places and histories on the brink. This is what gives George Kouvaros's essays their sense of occasion and responsibility-to those who came before and those still to come. The outcome is a form of writing that is deeply moving and alert to the tension between survival and transformation, preservation and appropriation that defines the engagements with our forebears.