The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler / Map of Babylon

The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler / Map of Babylon pairs two color photographic essays by John Gossage, his first books shot in color, issued as companion volumes with neither taking precedence over the other.

The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler documents the Washington, D.C. neighborhood where Gossage lives, a district of ambassadors' residences, embassies, and the private homes of the capital's power elite, begun the year a new neighbor, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, moved in nearby. Photographed across a full cycle of seasons, the images of streets, cars, houses, and yards favor days of clear blue sky and full foliage, an almost too-perfect calm that reads as the visual manner of privilege itself.

Steidl has published several of Gossage's later books, including The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler (2010), Looking Up Ben James: A Fable (2018), and Should Nature Change (2019); this edition also carries the imprint of the International Center of Photography, New York.