From factories, mines, and nuclear power stations to space research centers, Victorian English mill towns, and American gold rush settlements, Abandoned Industrial Places examines the places history left behind.   Once these industrial spaces were celebrated and thriving; now, they're ghostly and forlorn. When times change and they're no longer needed, power stations, gasworks, car plants, factories, and mine derricks are often too large to destroy. So they linger, looming over the landscape, haunting relics of the past. Ranging from Cuba's unfinished nuclear power station to atomic test sites in England, from Nevada's silver towns to a French coal-washing facility, from a sugar factory in Belgrade to a whole mining island in Japan and, yes, Chernobyl, Abandoned Industrial Places captures these imposing, often eerie, structures. Some are magnificent pieces of architecture, others appear like ragged pieces of piping out of science fiction, but each one tells a fascinating story.    The abandoned places include:   NORTH AMERICA: Hudson Body Plant, Detroit; Crystal Mill near Marble, Colorado; Michigan Central Station, Detroit; Redstone Rocket Test Site, Huntsville, Alabama; Don Valley Brickworks, Toronto, Canada   CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA: Santa Laura Nitrate works, Chile; Petermann Island, Antarctica; Hacienda Yaxcopoil near Merida, Mexico (former hemp or henequen rope factory); Leith Harbour Whaling Station, South Georgia; Illegal Mine Site, Tambopata, Peru   EUROPE: Excavator Factory, Voronezh, Russia; Glassworks, Haidemühl, Brandenburg, Germany; Plumain Factory, New Aquitaine, France; Sugar Factory, Belgrade, Serbia; Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, Ukraine   AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST: Lead mine, Morocco; Kolmanskop mining town, Namibia Drilling Rig; Vredehoek Quarry, South Africa   ASIA AND THE PACIFIC: Iron and Steel Mill, Loudi, Hunan, China; Hashima, mining island, Japan; Buran Transport, Baikonur, Kazakhstan; Cockatoo Island Docks, Sydney, Australia