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books tagged “cities”
books tagged “cities”
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AIA Guide to New York Cityby Elliot Willensky, Norval WhiteISBN 0156036002 (0-15-603600-2)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'AIA Guide to New York City'Book summary:Since the AIA Guide to New York City was first published in 1967, it has been recognized as the ultimate guide to the metropolis's buildings, in all five boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island -- from nineteenth-century brownstones and tenements to modern high-rise apartments and museums. The latest edition of this urban classic takes a fresh look at the architectural treasures that define New York -- from its most characteristic landmarks to its less famous local favorites.
To prepare this edition -- the first revision since 1987 -- Norval White has visited and revisited more than 5,000 buildings, making this by far the most complete guide of its kind. This generously illustrated handbook presents the structures of the New York City--from the magnificent to the obscure -- in over 3,000 new photographs, more than 130 new maps, and hundreds of revised and new entries. Beyond the skyscrapers and historical buildings, the guide also leads the way to the city's bridges, parks, and public monuments.
From the tip of the Empire State Building to the brownstones in Brooklyn, the AIA Guide to New York City reveals how the city's spirit, fortitude, and character are captured and expressed in its architecture. Thoughtful and humorous descriptions include fascinating bits of local information that bring the city's history to life, telling the stories behind the bricks and mortar. Together, the maps, photographs, and expert critiques invite you on a special grand tour of the city at your own pace.
This guide is a definitive record of New York's architectural heritage and provides a compact, authoritative directory for lovers of New York City all over the world. Its portability and encyclopedic quality make it an ideal traveling companion for any walker in the city. For the sightseer, the architect, or anyone on a casual stroll, the AIA Guide to New York City is the book to grab on your way out the door. [via]More editions of AIA Guide to New York City:
- Aia Guide to New York City: ISBN 0812931076 (0-8129-3107-6)
Softcover, Times Books - AIA Guide to New York City: ISBN 002626580X (0-02-626580-X)
Hardcover, Macmillan - Aia Guide to New York City: ISBN 0151040400 (0-15-104040-0)
Hardcover, Harcourt - AIA Guide to New York City: ISBN 0156036002 (0-15-603600-2)
Softcover, Harcourt
- Aia Guide to New York City: ISBN 0812931076 (0-8129-3107-6)
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AIA Guide to New York City : New York Chapter, American Institute of Architectsby Norval White, Elliot WillenskyISBN 0812931068 (0-8129-3106-8)
Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'AIA Guide to New York City : New York Chapter, American Institute of Architects'Book summary:Since the AIA Guide to New York City was first published in 1967, it has been recognized as the ultimate guide to the metropolis's buildings, in all five boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island -- from nineteenth-century brownstones and tenements to modern high-rise apartments and museums. The latest edition of this urban classic takes a fresh look at the architectural treasures that define New York -- from its most characteristic landmarks to its less famous local favorites.
To prepare this edition -- the first revision since 1987 -- Norval White has visited and revisited more than 5,000 buildings, making this by far the most complete guide of its kind. This generously illustrated handbook presents the structures of the New York City--from the magnificent to the obscure -- in over 3,000 new photographs, more than 130 new maps, and hundreds of revised and new entries. Beyond the skyscrapers and historical buildings, the guide also leads the way to the city's bridges, parks, and public monuments.
From the tip of the Empire State Building to the brownstones in Brooklyn, the AIA Guide to New York City reveals how the city's spirit, fortitude, and character are captured and expressed in its architecture. Thoughtful and humorous descriptions include fascinating bits of local information that bring the city's history to life, telling the stories behind the bricks and mortar. Together, the maps, photographs, and expert critiques invite you on a special grand tour of the city at your own pace.
This guide is a definitive record of New York's architectural heritage and provides a compact, authoritative directory for lovers of New York City all over the world. Its portability and encyclopedic quality make it an ideal traveling companion for any walker in the city. For the sightseer, the architect, or anyone on a casual stroll, the AIA Guide to New York City is the book to grab on your way out the door. [via]More editions of AIA Guide to New York City : New York Chapter, American Institute of Architects:
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The Arcades Projectby Walter Benjamin, Kevin McLaughlin, Howard EilandISBN 0674008022 (0-674-00802-2)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Arcades Project'Book summary:You could spend years trying to read Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project--after all, he spent much of the last 13 years of his life doing the research. When he committed suicide in 1940, he destroyed his copy of the manuscript, and so for decades the work was believed lost. But another copy turned up, and Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin have translated it into English. It is a complex, fragmentary work--more a series of notes for a book than a book itself--which probes the culture of the Paris arcades (a cross between covered streets and shopping malls) of the mid-19th century and the flaneur ("the man who walks long and aimlessly through the streets" in an "anamnestic intoxication [that] ... feeds on the sensory data taking shape before his eyes but often possesses itself of abstract knowledge--indeed, of dead facts--as something experienced and lived through"). The Arcades Project is, frankly, so dense a work that one hardly has enough time to glimpse fleetingly at its sections--over 100 pages of notes on Baudelaire alone!--before mentioning it to you, though one certainly looks forward to the opportunity to peruse it at leisure. [via]
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Cities and Civilizationsby Christopher HibbertISBN 1555840175 (1-55584-017-5)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cities and Civilizations'Book summary:In this classic volume, Hibbert reveals his impressions of the appearance and social life of 21 of the world's greatest cities at crucial moments in their development. From Thebes to Sydney, Rome to Moscow, Hibbert focuses on the origins of these cities and the nature of the civilizations from which they emerged. 195 photos, 35 in full-color. [via]
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Cities and People: A Social and Architectural Historyby Mark GirouardISBN 0300039689 (0-300-03968-9)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cities and People: A Social and Architectural History'Book summary:Unmarked book with light wear US media shipping only, due to size. [via]
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Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Lifeby Jane JacobsISBN 0394729110 (0-394-72911-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life'Book summary:"Learned, iconoclastic and exciting...Jacobs' diagnosis of the decay of cities in an increasingly integrated world economy is on the mark."New York Times Book Review
"Jacobs' book is inspired, idiosyncratic and personal...It is written with verve and humor; for a work of embattled theory, it is wonderfully concrete, and its leaps are breathtaking."Los Angeles Times
"Not only comprehensible but entertaining...Like Mrs. Jacobs' other books, it offers a concrete approach to an abstract and elusive subject. That, all by itself, makes for an intoxicating experience."New York Times [via]More editions of Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life:
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Cities for a Small Planetby Richard RogersISBN 0813335531 (0-8133-3553-1)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cities for a Small Planet'Book summary:Nothing else damages the earths environment more than our cities. As the worlds population has grown, our cities have burgeoned, and their impact on the environment worsened. Meanwhile, from the isolated, gated communities within Houston and Los Angeles, to the millions of residents of Bombay living in squalor, the city has failed to serve its ideal functionas the cradle of civilization, the engine of culture, and the inspiration for community and citizenship. In Cities for a Small Planet, Sir Richard Rogers, one of the worlds leading architects and the designer of the Pompidou Center in Paris, demonstrates how future cities could provide the springboard for restoring humanitys harmony with its environment.Rogers outlines the disastrous impact cities have had and will continue to have on our world, from waste-saturated Tokyo Bay, to the massive plumes of pollution caused by Londons traffic, to the depleted water resources of Mexico City. He traces these problems to the underlying social and cultural values that create themunchecked commercial zeal, selfish individualism, and a lack of community. Bringing to bear concepts such as that of open-minded spaceplaces within cities that serve multiple functions such as markets, parks, and sidewalk cafeshe explains how urban design can be used to give citizens a sense of shared experience. The city built with comfortable and safe public space can bring diverse groups together and breed a sense of tolerance, awareness, identity, and mutual respect. He calls for a new theoretical shift in the way cities do business and interact with the environment, arguing that many products come to market and are sold without figuring their social or environmental cost.Rogers goes on to describe the city of the future: one that is sustainable within its own environment; that can make a positive impact on its surroundings; that encourages communication among its citizens; that is compact and focused around neighborhoods; and that is beautiful, a city whose buildings and spaces spark the creative potential of its inhabitants.As our population grows larger, our planet grows smaller. Cities for a Small Planet is a passionate and eloquent blueprint for the cities we must create in response, cities that provide for the needs of both their residents and the earth on which they live.[via]More editions of Cities for a Small Planet:
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Cities in Civilizationby Peter HallISBN 0753808153 (0-7538-0815-3)
Softcover, Orion Publishing Group, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cities in Civilization'Book summary:Ranging over 2,500 years, Cities in Civilization is a tribute to the city as the birthplace of Western civilization. Drawing on the contributions of economists and geographers, of cultural, technological, and social historians, Sir Peter Hall examines twenty-one cities at their greatest moments. Hall describes the achievements of these golden ages and outlines the precise combinations of forces -- both universal and local -- that led to each city's belle epoque.
Hall identifies four distinct expressions of civic innovation: artistic growth, technological progress, the marriage of culture and technology, and solutions to evolving problems. Descriptions of Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan London, and nineteenth-century Vienna bring to life those seedbeds of artistic and intellectual creativity. Explorations of Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, of Henry Ford's Detroit, and of Palo Alto at the dawn of the computer age highlight centers of technological advances. Tales of the creation of Los Angeles' movie industry and the birth of the blues and rock 'n' roll in Memphis depict the marriage of culture and technology.
Finally, Hall celebrates cities that have been forced to solve problems created by their very size. With Imperial Rome came the apartment block and aqueduct; nineteenth-century London introduced policing, prisons, and sewers; twentieth-century New York developed the skyscraper; and Los Angeles became the first city without a center, a city ruled instead by the car. And in a fascinating conclusion, Hall speculates on urban creativity in the twenty-first century.
This penetrating study reveals not only the lives of cities but also the lives of the people who built them and created the civilizations within them. A decade in the making, Cities in Civilization is the definitive account of the culture of cities. [via] 
Cities in Civilizationby Peter Geoffrey HallISBN 0880642505 (0-88064-250-5)
Softcover, Fromm Intl
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Cities in Civilization: Culture, Innovation, and Urban Orderby Peter HallISBN 0297842196 (0-297-84219-6)
Hardcover, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cities in Civilization: Culture, Innovation, and Urban Order'Book summary:Every golden age has been an urban age; throughout history, cities have provided a crucible for creativity. How do such belles époquescome about? Why should the creative flame burn so uniquely in cities and not in the countryside, and why does the creative and innovative spirit of one city inevitably yield to another? Cities in Civilization explores these issues and others related to the central role of cities, past and present, in the fostering of artistic, philosophical, scientific, and technological genius.
Peter Hall devoted 15 years of his life conceptualizing, researching, and writing Cities in Civilization. His extraordinary efforts are apparent in the analytical scope, historical depth, and sheer length of the book, which, including photographs and a bibliography, is well over 1,000 pages. Supporting his argument with ample reference to dates, historical figures, and citations of leading urban scholars, the book does not lend itself to casual, cover-to-cover reading. Despite the book's length, though, it remains easy to navigate through the case studies of individual cities. Hall systematically divides the text into five thematic chapters, further subdividing each chapter chronologically by city. The chapters explore themes of cultural creativity, technological and economic innovation, the urban fusion of art and technology, urban innovation, and the partnership of the private and public sector to promote urban development and regeneration.
Breaking from other leading scholars in the field, Hall does not consider the great city doomed. Instead, Cities in Civilization testifies to his confidence that cities of the 21st century, like the great cities of the past, will successfully work to solve their own problems and ameliorate their own ills. --Bertina Loeffler [via]
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The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospectsby Lewis MumfordISBN 156731211X (1-56731-211-X)
Hardcover, Fine Communications
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects'Book summary:Lewis Mumford's massive historical study brings together a wide array of evidence--from the earliest group habitats to medieval towns to the modern centers of commerce (as well as dozens of black-and-white illustrations)--to show how the urban form has changed throughout human civilization. His tone is ultimately somewhat pessimistic: Mumford was deeply concerned with what he viewed as the dehumanizing aspects of the metropolitan trend, which he deemed "a world of professional illusionists and their credulous victims." (In another typically unrestrained criticism, he dubbed the Pentagon a Bronze Age monument to humanity's basest impulses, as well as an "effete and worthless baroque conceit.") Mumford hoped for a rediscovery of urban principles that emphasized humanity's organic relationship to its environment. The City in History remains a powerfully influential work, one that has shaped the agendas of urban planners, sociologists, and social critics since its publication in the 1960s. [via]
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The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Conditionby James Howard KunstlerISBN 0743227239 (0-7432-2723-9)
Softcover, Free Pr
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The City in Mind : Notes on the Urban Conditionby James Howard KunstlerISBN 0684845911 (0-684-84591-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The City in Mind : Notes on the Urban Condition'Book summary:In "The Geography of Nowhere," James Howard Kunstler declared suburbia "a tragic landscape of cartoon architecture, junked cities, and ravaged countryside" and put himself at the heart of a fierce debate over how we will live in twenty-first century America. Now, Kunstler turns his wickedly mordant and astute eye on urban life both in America and across the world. From classical Rome to the "gigantic hairball" of contemporary Atlanta, he offers a far-reaching discourse on the history and current state of urban life.
"The City in Mind" tells the story of urban design and how the architectural makeup of a city directly influences its culture as well as its success. From the ingenious architectural design of Louis-Napoleon's renovation of Paris to the bloody collision of cultures that occurred when Cortes conquered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, from the grandiose architectural schemes of Hitler and Albert Speer to the meanings behind the ludicrous spectacle of Las Vegas, Kunstler opens up a new dialogue on the development and effects of urban construction. In his investigations, he discovers American communities in the Sunbelt and Southwest alienated from each other and themselves, Northeastern cities caught between their initial civic construction and our current car-obsessed society, and a disparate Europe with its mix of pre-industrial creativity, and war-marked reminders of the twentieth century.
Expanding on ideas first discussed in Jane Jacobs' seminal work, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," Kunstler looks to Europe to discover what is constant and enduring in cities at their greatest, and at the same time, how a city's design can be directly linked toits decline. In these dazzling excursions he finds the reasons that America got lost in its suburban wilderness and locates the pathways in culture that might lead to a civic revival here. Kunstler's examination of these cities is at once a concise history of their urban lives and a detailed criticism of how those histories have either aided or hindered the social and civil progress of the cities' occupants. By turns dramatic and wildly comic, and always authoritative, "The City in Mind," is an exceptional glimpse into the urban condition. [via]
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City Lifeby Witold RybczynskiISBN 0684825295 (0-684-82529-5)
Softcover, Scribner
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City Life: Urban Expectations in a New Worldby Witold RybczynskiISBN 0684813025 (0-684-81302-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'City Life : Urban Expectations in a New World'Book summary:In City Life, Witold Rybczynski looks at what we want from cities, how they have evolved, and what accounts for their unique identities. In this vivid description of everything from the early colonial settlements to the advent of the skyscraper to the changes wrought by the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, and telecommuting, Rybczynski reveals how our urban spaces have been shaped by the landscapes and lifestyles of the New World. [via]
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City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angelesby Mike Davis, Robert MorrowISBN 1844675688 (1-84467-568-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles'Book summary:Mike Davis peers into a looking glass to divine the future of Los Angeles, and what he sees is not encouraging: a city--or better, a concatenation of competing city states--torn by racial enmity, economic disparity, and social anomie. Looking backward, Davis suggests that Los Angeles has always been contested ground. In the 1840s, he writes, a combination of drought and industrial stock raising led to the destruction of small-scale Spanish farming in the region. In the 1910s, Los Angeles was the scene of a bitter conflict between management and industrial workers, so bitter that the publisher of the Los Angeles Times retreated to a heavily fortified home he called "The Bivouac." And in 1992, much of the city fell before flames and riot in a scenario Davis describes as thus: "Gangs are multiplying at a terrifying rate, cops are becoming more arrogant and trigger-happy, and a whole generation is being shunted toward some impossible Armageddon." Davis's voice-in-a-whirlwind approach to the past, present, and future of Los Angeles is alarming and arresting, and his book is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary affairs. --Gregory MacNamee [via]
More editions of City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles:
- City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles: ISBN 0679738061 (0-679-73806-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc - City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles: ISBN 0860913031 (0-86091-303-1)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc - City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles: ISBN 1844675688 (1-84467-568-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles: ISBN 0679738061 (0-679-73806-1)
Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United Statesby Kenneth T. JacksonISBN 0195132874 (0-19-513287-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States'Book summary:This first full-scale history of the development of the American suburb examines how "the good life" in America came to be equated with the a home of one's own surrounded by a grassy yard and located far from the urban workplace. Integrating social history with economic and architectural analysis, and taking into account such factors as the availability of cheap land, inexpensive building methods, and rapid transportation, Kenneth Jackson chronicles the phenomenal growth of the American suburb from the middle of the 19th century to the present day. He treats communities in every section of the U.S. and compares American residential patterns with those of Japan and Europe. In conclusion, Jackson offers a controversial prediction: that the future of residential deconcentration will be very different from its past in both the U.S. and Europe.
[via]More editions of Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States:
- Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States: ISBN 0195049837 (0-19-504983-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United State: ISBN 0195036107 (0-19-503610-7)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr - Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States: ISBN 0195132874 (0-19-513287-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
- Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States: ISBN 0195049837 (0-19-504983-7)
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The Death and Life of Great American Citiesby Jane JacobsISBN 067974195X (0-679-74195-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities'Book summary:Jane Jacobs sets out to produce an attack on current city-planning and rebuilding in America and to introduce new principles by which these should be governed. Throughout the post-war period, planners temperamentally unsympathetic to cities have been let loose on the urban environment. Inspired by the ideals of the Garden City or Le Corbusier's Radiant City, they have dreamt up ambitious projects based on self-contained neighbourhoods, super-blocks, rigid "scientific" plans and endless acres of grass. Yet they seldom stop to look at what actually works on the ground. The real vitality of cities, argues Jacobs, lies in their diversity, architectural variety, teeming street life and human scale. It is only when we appreciate such fundamental realities that we can hope to create cities that are safe, interesting and economically viable, as well as places that people want to live in. [via]
More editions of The Death and Life of Great American Cities:
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities: ISBN 0140551417 (0-14-055141-7)
Softcover, Penguin USA - The Death and Life of Great American Cities: ISBN 0140206817 (0-14-020681-7)
Hardcover, Penguin - The Death and Life of Great American Cities: ISBN 0375508732 (0-375-50873-2)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - The Death and Life of Great American Cities: ISBN 0679600477 (0-679-60047-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - The Death and Life of Great American Cities: ISBN 067974195X (0-679-74195-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities: ISBN 0140551417 (0-14-055141-7)
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Dhalgrenby Samuel R. DelanyISBN 0375706682 (0-375-70668-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dhalgren'Book summary:What is Dhalgren? Dhalgren is one of the greatest novels of 20th-century American literature. Dhalgren is one of the all-time bestselling science fiction novels. Dhalgren may be read with equal validity as SF, magic realism, or metafiction. Dhalgren is controversial, challenging, and scandalous. Dhalgren is a brilliant novel about sex, gender, race, class, art, and identity.
A mysterious disaster has stricken the midwestern American city of Bellona, and its aftereffects are disturbing: a city block burns down and is intact a week later; clouds cover the sky for weeks, then part to reveal two moons; a week passes for one person when only a day passes for another. The catastrophe is confined to Bellona, and most of the inhabitants have fled. But others are drawn to the devastated city, among them the Kid, a white/American Indian man who can't remember his own name. The Kid is emblematic of those who live in the new Bellona, who are the young, the poor, the mad, the violent, the outcast--the marginalized.
Dhalgren is many things, but instantly accessible isn't one of them. While most of this big, ambitious, deeply detailed novel is beautifully pellucid, the opening pages will be difficult for some: the novel starts with the second half of an incomplete sentence, in the viewpoint of a man who doesn't know who he is. If you find the early pages rough going, push on; the story soon becomes clear and fascinating. But--fair warning--the central nature of the disaster, of its strange devastations and disruptions, remains a puzzle for many readers, sometimes after several readings.
Spoiler warning: If you want to figure out the secret of the novel as you read Dhalgren, then stop reading this review right now! If you want to know the secret before you start, this is what the novel is about: the experience of existence inside a novel. Time passes differently for different characters. A river changes location. Stairs change their number. The Kid looks in a mirror and sees not himself, but someone who looks an awful lot like Samuel R. Delany. Central images include mirrors, lenses, and prisms, devices that focus, reflect--and distort. The Kid fills a notebook with a journal that may be Dhalgren, and is uncertain if he has written much, or any, of it. The characters don't know they're in a novel, but they know something is wrong. Dhalgren explores the relationship between characters and author (or, perhaps, characters, "author," and author).
The final chapter can be even tougher going than the opening pages, with its viewpoint change and its stretches of braided narrative--and the novel ends with the beginning of an unfinished sentence. But the last chapter becomes clear as you persevere; and when you get to that unfinished closing line, turn to the first line of the novel to finish the sentence and close the narrative circle. --Cynthia Ward [via]
The Economy of Citiesby Jane JacobsISBN 039470584X (0-394-70584-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Edge Cityby Joel GarreauISBN 0385424345 (0-385-42434-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Edge City'Book summary:First there was downtown. Then there were suburbs. Then there were malls. Then Americans launched the most sweeping change in 100 years in how they live, work, and play. The Edge City. [via]
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The Edge City: Life on the New Frontierby Joel GarreauISBN 0385262493 (0-385-26249-3)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Softwareby Steven JohnsonISBN 0684868768 (0-684-86876-8)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software'Book summary:An individual ant, like an individual neuron, is just about as dumb as can be. Connect enough of them together properly, though, and you get spontaneous intelligence. Web pundit Steven Johnson explains what we know about this phenomenon with a rare lucidity in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. Starting with the weird behavior of the semi-colonial organisms we call slime molds, Johnson details the development of increasingly complex and familiar behavior among simple components: cells, insects, and software developers all find their place in greater schemes.
Most game players, alas, live on something close to day-trader time, at least when they're in the middle of a game--thinking more about their next move than their next meal, and usually blissfully oblivious to the ten- or twenty-year trajectory of software development. No one wants to play with a toy that's going to be fun after a few decades of tinkering--the toys have to be engaging now, or kids will find other toys.
Johnson has a knack for explaining complicated and counterintuitive ideas cleverly without stealing the scene. Though we're far from fully understanding how complex behavior manifests from simple units and rules, our awareness that such emergence is possible is guiding research across disciplines. Readers unfamiliar with the sciences of complexity will find Emergence an excellent starting point, while those who were chaotic before it was cool will appreciate its updates and wider scope. --Rob Lightner [via]
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Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Cultureby Carl E. SchorskeISBN 0394744780 (0-394-74478-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture'Book summary:Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Paperback) by Carl E. Schorske. Vintage Books edition, January 1981. PAPERBACK 377 pages. [via]
More editions of Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture:
- Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture: ISBN 052128516X (0-521-28516-X)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture: ISBN 0394505964 (0-394-50596-4)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture: ISBN 0844671347 (0-8446-7134-7)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc - Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture: ISBN 0394744780 (0-394-74478-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture: ISBN 052128516X (0-521-28516-X)
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Florence: A Delicate Caseby David LeavittISBN 1582342393 (1-58234-239-3)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Florence: A Delicate Case'Book summary:David Leavitt has long been a writer of rare distinction, and Florence, a Delicate Case is a compact and highly pleasurable book that functions on many levels. Firstly, there is the enjoyment of the prose: Leavitt's pithy, poetic style is immensely evocative, always erudite and unfailingly entertaining. Then there is the detailed and atmospheric evocation of one of the world's most beguiling cities. But most of all, Leavitt's book is a brilliant panoply of some of the most remarkable characters (literary and otherwise) who made Firenze their home.
Beginning by speculating as to why Florence has always proved such a desirable destination for would-be suicides, Leavitt's asks what makes the city (in the words of Henry James) such a "delicate case" for natives and incomers alike. Smoothly negotiating past and present, Leavitt details the history of the foreign colony from the middle of the 19th century until the dark days of the Mussolini era and, later, the last gasp of the Anglo-Florentine colony marked by the passing of such luminaries as Harold Acton and John Pope-Hennessy.
There are marvellously entertaining portraits of such talented visitors to the city as EM Forster, Tchaikovsky and DH Lawrence (Florence was always a centre for the sexual taboo-breakers--Leavitt is particularly perceptive when dealing with the many gay artists and writers who strolled down the Via Tornabuoni). But the author is just as diverting when discussing the wastrels and eccentrics. Who is the book aimed at? That's not quite clear--but if you're interested in the city, or its wildly disparate cast of characters, you're sure to find several tempting nuggets in this concise volume. --Barry Forshaw [via]
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The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscapeby James Howard KunstlerISBN 0671888250 (0-671-88825-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape'Book summary:An analysis of America's national landscape argues that much of what surrounds Americans is depressing, ugly, and unhealthy and traces America's evolution from a land of village commons to a man-made landscape that ignores nature and human needs. [via]
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The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Communityby Ray OldenburgISBN 1569246815 (1-56924-681-5)
Softcover, Marlowe & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community'More editions of The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community:
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The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Dayby Ray OldenburgISBN 1569247781 (1-56924-778-1)
Softcover, Pub Group West
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day'Book summary:A look at informal gathering places--coffe shops, community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars and others. The author considers their importance to our communities and the reasons for their gradual disappearance. [via]
More editions of The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day:
- The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day: ISBN 1557781109 (1-55778-110-9)
Hardcover, Continuum Intl Pub Group - The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day: ISBN 1569247781 (1-56924-778-1)
Softcover, Pub Group West
- The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day: ISBN 1557781109 (1-55778-110-9)
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The Image of the Cityby Kevin LynchISBN 0262620014 (0-262-62001-4)
Softcover, Mit Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Image of the City'Book summary:What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion--imageability--and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities.The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book. [via]
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Invisible Citiesby Italo Calvino, William WeaverISBN 0156453800 (0-15-645380-0)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Invisible Cities'Book summary:"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take. [via]
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London: The Biographyby Peter AckroydISBN 1856197166 (1-85619-716-6)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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› Find signed collectible books: 'London: The Biography'Book summary:Here are two thousand years of Londons history and folklore, its chroniclers and criminals and plain citizens, its food and drink and countless pleasures. Blackfriars and Charing Cross, Paddington and Bedlam. Westminster Abbey and St. Martin in the Fields. Cockneys and vagrants. Immigrants, peasants, and punks. The Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz. London at all times of day and night, and in all kinds of weather. In well-chosen anecdotes, keen observations, and the words of hundreds of its citizens and visitors, Ackroyd reveals the ingenuity and grit and vitality of London. Through a unique thematic tour of the physical city and its inimitable soul, the city comes alive. [via]
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London: A Social Historyby Roy PorterISBN 0674538390 (0-674-53839-0)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'London: A Social History'Book summary:This dazzling and yet intimate book is the first modern one-volume history of London from Roman times to the present. An extraordinary city, London grew from a backwater in the Classical age into an important medieval city, a significant Renaissance urban center, and a modern colossus. Roy Porter paints a detailed landscape--from the grid streets and fortresses of Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror to the medieval, walled "most noble city" of churches, friars, and crown and town relationships. Within the crenelated battlements, manufactures and markets developed and street-life buzzed.
London's profile in 1500 was much as it was at the peak of Roman power. The city owed its courtly splendor and national pride of the Tudor Age to the phenomenal expansion of its capital. It was the envy of foreigners, the spur of civic patriotism, and a hub of culture, architecture, great literature, and new religion. From the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, London experienced a cruel civil war, raging fires, enlightenment in thought, government, and living, and the struggle and benefits of empire. From the lament that "London was but is no more" to "you, who are to stand a wonder to all Years and ages...a phoenix," London became an elegant, eye-catching, metropolitan hub. It was a mosaic, Porter shows, that represented the shared values of a people--both high and low born--at work and play.
London was and is a wonder city, a marvel. Not since ancient times has there been such a city--not eternal, but vibrant, living, full of a free people ever evolving. In this transcendent book, Roy Porter touches the pulse of his hometown and makes it our own, capturing London's fortunes, people, and imperial glory with brio and wit.
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Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquakeby Edward SeidenstickerISBN 0674539397 (0-674-53939-7)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake'Book summary:This book looks at the metamorphosis of Japan from a country with little contact with the outside world to one brimming with Western ideas and technologies. Seidensticker focuses on Tokyo in the years between the Meiji Restoration and the earthquake of 1923 to illustrate this change. He shows how Tokyo, which was called Edo until 1867, emerged from being the shogun's capital and the biggest city in a country which had been closed to the outside world for two and a half centuries, to a modern city, open to Western ideas. [via]
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Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake, 1867-1923by Edward G. SeidenstickerISBN 0394507304 (0-394-50730-4)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Mapping Cities: Boston University Art Galery January 14-February 25, 2000by Naomi MillerISBN 1881450139 (1-881450-13-9)
Softcover, Univ of Washington Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mapping Cities: Boston University Art Galery January 14-February 25, 2000'Book summary:Mapping Cities charts both the development of urban planning in seven cities -- Jerusalem, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Boston, and New York -- and changes in mapmaking since the 15th century.
Despite the ubiquity of city maps, urban cartography is a relatively recent discipline, quite distinct from the field of urban history. This book emphasizes the city map as a bearer of information and a graphic means of communication. It illustrates several little-known maps, including a never before published 1598 map of Jerusalem, an 1858 lithograph of New York in an orb, and a poster for the Tate Gallery advertising the London transport system. Also included are acknowledged landmarks such as Nolli's 1748 map of Rome, the Turgot map of Paris featuring detailed images of 18th-century Parisian life, and the McIntyre map of Boston. [via]
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Maximum City: Bombay Lost And Foundby Suketu MehtaISBN 0375703403 (0-375-70340-3)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maximum City: Bombay Lost And Found'Book summary:A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insiders view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks. [via]
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Medieval Cities Their Origins and the Revival of Traby Henri Pirenne, Frank D. HalseyISBN 0691007608 (0-691-00760-8)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Medieval Cities Their Origins and the Revival of Tra'Book summary:Henri Pirenne is best known for his provocative argument--known as the "Pirenne thesis" and familiar to all students of medieval Europe--that it was not the invasion of the Germanic tribes that destroyed the civilization of antiquity, but rather the closing of Mediterranean trade by Arab conquest in the seventh century. The consequent interruption of long distance commerce accelerated the decline of the ancient cities of Europe. Pirenne first formulated his thesis in articles and then expanded on them in Medieval Cities. In the book Pirenne traces the growth of the medieval city from the tenth century to the twelfth, challenging conventional wisdom by attributing the origins of medieval cities to the revival of trade. In addition, Pirenne describes the clear role the middle class played in the development of the modern economic system and modern culture. The "Pirenne thesis" was fully worked out in the book Mohammed and Charlemagne, which appeared shortly after Pirenne's death.
Pirenne was one of the world's leading historians and arguably the most famous Belgium had produced. During World War I, while teaching at the University of Ghent, he was arrested for supporting Belgium's passive resistance and deported to Germany, where he was held from 1916 to 1918. In 1922, universities in various parts of the United States invited him to deliver lectures: out of these lectures grew Medieval Cities, which appeared in English translation before being published in French in 1927.
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Metropolis: Ten Cities and Ten Centuriesby Albert Lorenz, Joy SchlehISBN 0810942844 (0-8109-4284-4)
Hardcover, Abrams , Incorporated, Harry N.
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The Nature of Economiesby Jane JacobsISBN 0375702431 (0-375-70243-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Nature of Economies'Book summary:Nearly forty years after The Death and Life of Great American Cities forever changed the field of urban studies, Jane Jacobs--one of the few contemporary thinkers whose works will remain in print for generations--brings us a modern classic on economies and ecology. Original and eloquent, this new book looks at the connection between the economy and nature, arguing that the principles of development, common to both systems, are the proper subject of economic study.
The Nature of Economies is written in the form of a Platonic dialogue, a conversation over coffee among five contemporary New Yorkers. The question they discuss is: Does economic life obey the same rules as those governing the systems in nature? For example, can the way fields and forests maximize their intakes and uses of sunlight teach us something about how economies expand wealth and jobs and can do this in environmentally beneficial ways? The underlying question is both simple and profound, and the answers that emerge will shape the way people think about how economies really work.
The New York Times described Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities as "first of all a work of literature." The accessibility of her prose--The New Criterion called it "majestic"--stands as Jacobs's hallmark. She is the rarest of analytic thinkers, both an economic visionary and an artist. Examining complex systems with the wit, style, and clear eye of the masterly essayist, in The Nature of Economies Jacobs once again accomplishes the near impossible: She fundamentally challenges some of the established principles of economics while writing in a style that enthralls the general reader. [via]More editions of The Nature of Economies:
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Neverwhereby Neil GaimanISBN 0060557818 (0-06-055781-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Neverwhere'Book summary:Neverwhere's protagonist, Richard Mayhew, learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. He ceases to exist in the ordinary world of London Above, and joins a quest through the dark and dangerous London Below, a shadow city of lost and forgotten people, places, and times. His companions are Door, who is trying to find out who hired the assassins who murdered her family and why; the Marquis of Carabas, a trickster who trades services for very big favors; and Hunter, a mysterious lady who guards bodies and hunts only the biggest game. London Below is a wonderfully realized shadow world, and the story plunges through it like an express passing local stations, with plenty of action and a satisfying conclusion. The story is reminiscent of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but Neil Gaiman's humor is much darker and his images sometimes truly horrific. Puns and allusions to everything from Paradise Lost to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz abound, but you can enjoy the book without getting all of them. Gaiman is definitely not just for graphic-novel fans anymore. --Nona Vero [via]
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Paris to the Moonby Adam GopnikISBN 0375758232 (0-375-75823-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Paris to the Moon'Book summary:In 1995 Gopnik was offered the plush assignment of writing the "Paris Journals" for the New Yorker. He spent five years in Paris with his wife, Martha, and son, Luke, writing dispatches now collected here along with previously unpublished journal entries. A self-described "comic-sentimental essayist," Gopnik chose the romance of Paris in its particulars as his subject. Gopnik falls in unabashed love with what he calls Paris's commonplace civilization--the cafés, the little shops, the ancient carousel in the park, and the small, intricate experiences that happen in such settings. But Paris can also be a difficult city to love, particularly its pompous and abstract official culture with its parallel paper universe. The tension between these two sides of Paris and the country's general brooding over the decline of French dominance in the face of globalization (haute couture, cooking, and sex, as well as the economy, are running deficits) form the subtexts for these finely wrought and witty essays. With his emphasis on the micro in the macro, Gopnik describes trying to get a Thanksgiving turkey delivered during a general strike and his struggle to find an apartment during a government scandal over favoritism in housing allocations. The essays alternate between reports of national and local events and accounts of expatriate family life, with an emphasis on "the trinity of late-century bourgeois obsessions: children and cooking and spectator sports, including the spectator sport of shopping." Gopnik describes some truly delicious moments, from the rites of Parisian haute couture, to the "occupation" of a local brasserie in protest of its purchase by a restaurant tycoon, to the birth of his daughter with the aid of a doctor in black jeans and a black silk shirt, open at the front. Gopnik makes terrific use of his status as an observer on the fringes of fashionable society to draw some deft comparisons between Paris and New York ("It is as if all American appliances dreamed of being cars while all French appliances dreamed of being telephones") and do some incisive philosophizing on the nature of both. This is masterful reportage with a winning infusion of intelligence, intimacy, and charm. --Lesley Reed [via]
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The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New Yorkby Robert A. CaroISBN 0394720245 (0-394-72024-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York'Book summary:For the sheer magnitude, depth and authority of its revelations, The Power Broker stands alone---a huge and galvanizing biography revealing not only the virtually unknown saga of one man's incredible accumulation of power, but the hidden story of the shaping (and mis-shaping) of New York through the past half-century.
Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders have known: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of our time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens--the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses--and brings to light a bonanza of vital new information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller.
But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man--an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. We see how Moses began: the handsome, intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd, an idealist. How, rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment, he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals. How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways, playlands and beaches--and then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape, the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway, the hopeless sprawl of Long Island, the massive failures of public housing, and countless other barriers to humane living. How, inevitably, the accumulation of power became an end in itself.
Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He was held in fear--his dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him. He was, he claimed, above politics, above deals; and through decade after decade, the newspapers and the public believed. Meanwhile, he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as "Triborough"--a government whose records were closed to the public, whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Moses--an immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions, on banks, on all the city's political and economic institutions, and on the press, and on the Church. He doled out millions of dollars' worth of legal fees, insurance commissions, lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he coveted: power. He dominated the politics and politicians of his time--without ever having been elected to any office. He was, in essence, above our democratic system.
Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years, through the governorships of Smith, Roosevelt, Lehman, Dewey, Harriman and Rockefeller, and in the city for 34 years, through the mayoralties of La Guardia, O'Dwyer, Impellitteri, Wagner and Lindsay, He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollars--he was undoubtedly America's greatest builder.
This is how he built and dominated New York--before, finally, he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller). But his work, and his will, had been done. [via]More editions of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York:
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Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitantsby Robert SullivanISBN 1582344779 (1-58234-477-9)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants'Book summary:Thoreau went to Walden Pond to live simply in the wild and contemplate his own place in the world by observing nature. Robert Sullivan went to a disused, garbage-filled little alley in lower Manhattan to contemplate the city and its lesser-known inhabitants-by observing the rat.[via]
Rats live in the world precisely where humans do; they survive on the effluvia of human society; they eat our garbage. While dispensing gruesomely fascinating rat facts and strangely entertaining rat-stories-everyone has one, it turns out-Sullivan gets to know not just the beast but its friends and foes: the exterminators, the sanitation workers, the agitators and activists who have played their part in the centuries-old war between human city dweller and wild city rat. With a notebook and night-vision gear, he sits nightly in the streamlike flow of garbage and searches for fabled rat-kings, sets out to trap a rat, and eventually travels to the Midwest to learn about rats in Chicago, Milwaukee, and other cities of America. With tales of rat fights in the Gangs of New York era and stories of Harlem rent strike leaders who used rats to win tenants basic rights, Sullivan looks deeper and deeper into the largely unrecorded history of the city and its masses-its herd-of-rats-like mob. Funny, wise, sometimes disgusting but always compulsively readable, Rats earns its unlikely place alongside the great classics of nature writing.
Did you know?
- 26% of all electric cable breaks and 18% of all phone cable disruptions are caused by rats, 25% of all fires of unknown origin are rat-caused, and rats destroy an estimated 1/3 of the world's food supply each year. The rat has been called the world's most destructive mammal-other than man.
- Male and female rats may have sex twenty times a day. A female can produce up to twelve litters of twenty rats a year: one pair of rats has the potential for 15,000 descendants in a year.More editions of Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants:
- Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants: ISBN 1582343853 (1-58234-385-3)
Hardcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA - Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants: ISBN 1582344779 (1-58234-477-9)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
- Rats: Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants: ISBN 1582343853 (1-58234-385-3)
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The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Lifeby Richard FloridaISBN 1417632518 (1-4176-3251-8)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life'Book summary:The Washington Monthly 2002 Annual Political Book Award WinnerThe Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today-and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.Just as William Whyte's 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have-with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living-the Creative Class.The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.[via]More editions of The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life:
- The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life: ISBN 0465024777 (0-465-02477-7)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group - The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life: ISBN 0465024769 (0-465-02476-9)
Hardcover, Perseus Books Group - The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life: ISBN 1417632518 (1-4176-3251-8)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
- The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life: ISBN 0465024777 (0-465-02477-7)
Salonica, City Of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims And Jews, 1430-1950by Mark MazowerISBN 0375727388 (0-375-72738-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Soft Cityby Jonathan RabanISBN 0002727781 (0-00-272778-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Soft City : A Documentary Exploration of Metropolitan Lifeby Jonathan RabanISBN 1860461077 (1-86046-107-7)
Softcover, Harvill, HarperCollins Publishers, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Soft City : A Documentary Exploration of Metropolitan Life'Book summary:Jonathan Raban's vivid, often funny portrait of metropolitan life is part reportage, part incisive thesis, part intimate autobiography, and a much-quoted classic of the literature of the city. In an age when the big city has fewer friends than ever, this is a passionate and imaginative defense of city life, its "unique plasticity, its privacy and freedom". Soft City, first published in 1974, records one man's attempt to plot a course through the urban labyrinth. Holding up a revealing mirror to the modern city, Raban finds it a stage for a demanding and expressive kind of personal drama.
Readers of Arabia (1979), Old Glory (1982), Hunting Mister Heartbreak (1990), and, more recently, Badlands (1997) will be delighted to discover this early work by one of the most inventive and enjoyable writers of our time. [via]
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Victorian Citiesby Asa BriggsISBN 0520079221 (0-520-07922-1)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr on Demand
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Victorian Cities'Book summary:A comparative study in urban history, Victorian Cities examines the 19th-century history of four developing cities in England in a period of rapid growth, with chapters on London and Melbourne and references to Los Angeles and Chicago as well.More editions of Victorian Cities:
What the World Needs Nowby Steven JohnsonISBN 1580083099 (1-58008-309-9)
Softcover, Ten Speed Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'What the World Needs Now'Book summary:Ever wanted a chair that converts into a rowing machine? Sunglasses that serve as a wallet? A car with a sundeck so you can work on your tan on those long road trips? Well, inventor and illustrator Steven Johnson has designed these marvels and many, many more, spurred on by a truly insatiable imagination. His wacky, wonderful concepts could very well change the world-that is, if someone was ever bold enough to build them. From clothing to dining technology, home furnishings to appliances, and gardening gadgets to survival gear, WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW is a sourcebook of revolutionary designs that prove how far our techno-culture has yet to go. Ä¢ Includes a three-step plan for inventing useful and useless things. [via]
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German
Charles Baudelaire: Ein Lyriker Im Zeitalter Des Hochkapitalismusby Walter Benjamin, Rolf TiedemannISBN 3518276476 (3-518-27647-6)
Softcover, Suhrkamp
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Das Passagen-Werkby Walter Benjamin, Rolf TiedemannISBN 3518112007 (3-518-11200-7)
Softcover, Suhrkamp
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Spanish
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Estambul/ Istanbul: Ciudad Y Recuerdos/ Memories and the Cityby Orhan PamukISBN 8439720297 (84-397-2029-7)
Hardcover, Random House Mondadori
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Estambul/ Istanbul: Ciudad Y Recuerdos/ Memories and the City'Book summary:Estambul es un retrato, en ocasiones panorámico y en otras íntimo y personal, de una de las ciudades más fascinantes de la Europa que mira a Asia. Pero es también una autobiografía, la del propio Orhan Pamuk. La historia da comienzo con el capítulo de su infancia, donde Pamuk nos habla sobre su excéntrica familia y su vida en un polvoriento apartamento -«los apartamentos Pamuk», así los denomina- en el centro de la ciudad. El autor recuerda que fue en aquellos días lejanos cuando tomó conciencia de que le había tocado vivir en un espacio plagado de melancolía: residente de un lugar en que arrastra un pasado glorioso y que intenta hacerse un hueco en la «modernidad». Viejos y hermosos edificios en ruinas, estatuas valiosas y mutantes, villas fantasmagóricas y callejuelas secretas donde, por encima de todo, destaca el terapéutico río Bósforo, que en la memoria del narrador es vida, salud y felicidad. Esta elegía sirve para que el autor introduzca a pintores, escritores y célebres asesinos, a través de cuyos ojos el narrador describe la ciudad. Hermoso retrato de una ciudad y una vida, ambas fascinantes por igual. [via]
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