I bought this book looking for a story about post-apocalypse America: the full title is "The Last American: A Fragment from the Journal of Khan-Li, Prince of the Dimph-You-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy." It was short and cutesy--filled with puns just as bad as "Dimph-You-Chur" (="dim future"), not quite what I expected. A Persian expedition a thousand years from now explores the ruins of New York and Washington. The book is interesting at least for its vintage: first published in 1889, it is one of the earliest works in its genre. There is a thinly veiled and shallow commentary on American shortcomings in the gilded age.