ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that Austen Henry Layard's excavations in the mid-nineteenth century tapped into and helped define an important period in Britain's self-fashioning as a modern civilization, industrial leader, and imperial nation. It shows how the national investment in Assyria describes a rich dialogism of voices speaking across a vast plain of physical and cultural geographies. The book argues that the United States (US) military's 2007 playing-card initiative typifies the deep-seated motif of the eternal return, the periodic reclamation of cultural origins fueling the ongoing imperial project of saving the East from itself. It explores that the Stones of Assyria resisted as much as they conformed to stable narratives of God, Queen, and Country. The book analyses of what is arguably the most influential and pervasive mass cultural genre and means of storytelling time: the feature film.
