Preface : a history of the gothic in thirteen chapters -- Origins of the Goths -- The ascent to heaven -- The iconoclasts -- The revenge of the dead -- Liberty gothic -- Gothic whiggery -- The sixties -- The descent into hell -- The poetics of blood -- The gothic dream -- New England Goths -- The ghost in the machine -- First and last and always
Summary
Nick Groom shows how the Gothic has come to encompass so many meanings by telling the story of the Gothic from the ancient tribe who sacked Rome to the alternative subculture of the present day
