Book Description
A manifesto by America's most controversial and celebrated town planners, proposing an alternative model for community design.
There is a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and to replace the automobile-based settlement patterns of the past fifty years with a return to more traditional planning principles. This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day.
Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions.
Customer Reviews:
The "A-ha" moment.......2007-09-10
I really must thank the authors for putting this together. I just finished Suburban Nation and I now know why I'm so stressed out all the time living in this "ticky-tacky" world (to borrow a line from the Weeds theme song).
I wish I could do more to help combat sprawl at the moment. However, I'm keeping my eyes open all the time for what works, what doesn't work and I will continue to study this subject so that if and when I'm in a position to either make a move or be part of a decision making body, I will be able to intelligently make my opinion known.
The Suburbia Style In Its Worst - And Real - Perspective + Solutions For The Future Ahead.......2007-07-30
It's no wonder that the suburbia style brought so much finance and - why not - mental damage to our everyday lives. We gave up living smartly for living in beautifulness.
I believe that the sense of ownership prevails in suburbia much more than the sense of community. If you live in one for a long time, you probably know what I am talking about. Even if you don't, you might imagine how it feels to be in one.
I lived in one for quite a long time and must recognize its benefits: peacefulness, plenty of space to stroll around and not much of noisy neighbors. Surely it has its advantages. I really admire how beautiful some neighborhoods really are and can remain when apart from the hassles of the inner city.
But the need of taking my car to do absolutely everything from my basic needs just started to bother me as time went by and as my bills started to rise from such crazy oil consumption. One of the reasons why we are the biggest spenders in the entire planet is certainly the suburb predominance all over the country. Any doubt about it?
This book is absolutely wonderful. It traces back to the WWII era when everything started out. Government has promoted all of the land development we see today and which is still in high demand, unfortunately. What once was a success formula to promote economic development is today a "cancer" that we have to live and deal with. We were imposed to a lifestyle that we didn't necessarily want to live, and we now pay high taxes just to keep this "monster" alive. As the book brightly states on its pages: suburbs were made for cars, not human beings.
At some point in the book, authors state something that for me it is absolutely true: the archictecture is a science which is very undervalued in America. Obsolete and outdated zoning ordinances, traffic engineers more worried about the flow and the trucks that could pass on the streets and, most of all, community planning based on numbers and not aesthetics are the major rules when a new development takes place, leaving no room for smart development.
Smart growth requires a lot of thinking, and for the long run, but thinking isn't really one of the best characteristics of land developers and home builders who have no expertise on archictecture issues, but only on how to make money fast and effortlessly. However, I have to recognize that it's not all their fault. Smart growth will also require a major cultural shift from a society which became used with such sprawl standards, whether living this way is beneficial or not.
The book not only shows what went wrong with such aged growth policies, but also proposes solutions for building smarter towns and stimulates the creation of a community sense that today is just missing. Carefully written, is a reading that won't put you at sleep.
A must read for anyone involved in real estate development.......2007-01-16
The authors point out some obvious and not-so-obvious trends and benefits of recent architecture and urban planning. As a small builder and developer of urban "in-fill" housing, I thought this brought an excellent perspective to our industry on the changing climate of urban development in America. Immediatly bought ten copies for our employees to read (and reread).
Good Intro to Urban/Regional Planning.......2007-01-09
This is the first book I've read in the field of Planning. Very easy to read, informative, and really gets you excited about the material. I would recommend it highly
One of the Most Important Books of the 21st Century.......2006-12-13
This book, written for people, sets the stage for one of the most important movements in American: New Urbanism. I've bought a dozen copies thus far, for distribution to friends. The book explains proper community building and lifestyles in terms that can be understood by all. Be prepared to change your way of thinking and living.
Book Description
"A beautifully written and definitive history of Baghdad...opening the doors to the old city and letting its secrets spill out." (Library Journal)
The "golden age of Islam" in the eighth and ninth centuries was as significant to world history as the Roman Empire was in the first and second centuries. The rule of Baghdad's Abbasid Dynasty stretched from Tunisia to India, and its legacy influenced politics and society for years to come. In this deftly woven narrative, Hugh Kennedy introduces us to the rich history and flourishing culture of the period, and the men and women of the palaces at Baghdad and Samarra-the caliphs, viziers, eunuchs, and women of the harem that produced the glorious days of the Arabian Nights.
"Superb...this is compelling reading for anyone concerned with the perils of power, the medieval Islamic legacy and the images that Baghdad continues to conjure in the modern imagination." (Publishers Weekly starred review)
Customer Reviews:
Great Introduction.......2007-09-05
This is one of the best history books that I have read. The best thing about it is that it reads like a novel. When you start reading it you cant stop because you really want to know what happens next, and most of the time I already knew what was going to happen!
Needed a few more details to make it perfect.......2006-08-08
Hugh Kennedy has done a wonderful job here of writing about one of the greatest dynasties in history. The history is comprehensive providing details about the caliphs, the battles for successions, their harems, the names of important men in each reign, and court intrigues etc., The book is very easy to read and at no point does the reader lose interest. In spite of breaking up the narration, of successive reigns and interspersing it with descriptions of court culture and palaces built by the rulers, the author has maintained a wonderful flow in the book.
My only disappointment was that the author did not provide more indepth information on 1. the famous libraries of Baghdad and 2. the economic and financial system prevalent at the time. I looked in vain for details of trading markets and goods brought in to Baghdad at the time and for any mention of the modus operandi of monetary transactions.
However, the book is still one of the most comprehensive English Language histories of the dynasty that I have come accross.
An Era I Knew Little About.......2006-06-07
So much of the study of history is concerned with dates. I can remember in college with cram sheets of when things happened. Mr. Kennedy doesn't write much of dates. He writes of people, people living more than a thousand years ago when our own western history was in a period we call the dark ages when learning was forgotten and the Roman Catholic church ruled all.
This was the time when the Shia and the Sunni were falling apart and beginning the conflict that rages to this day (In the morning paper a group of terrorists in Iraq stopped a bus or two, let the Sunni people go and murdered the Shia.)
This was the time that Osama bin Laden seeks to re-establish. An old glory such as Mussolini felt about Roman times.
For a couple of centuries a family ruled most of the Islamic world from Baghdad. For those of us more familiar with the antics of the kings of England there is a striking resemblance, palace intrigue, key supporters changing sides, murder, imprisonment, struggles over succession.
This book brings to life an aspect of history that few of us have heard before but which is increasing in importance in our time.
Fabulous history.......2006-02-15
I studied the medieval Islamic world a little in college, and fell in love. It's a fascinating age in which Central Asian Buddhists, North African nomads, Ethiopian slaves, Greek cave-dwellers, Persian aristocrats, Arab bureaucrats and a host of different cultures came together, mixed, wrote wonderful literature, and lived the kind of drama that makes history fun. But it's hard to find anything written about the time that isn't arcane professor babble or Islam 101. (You know, "There are five pillars of Islam..." Snore.)
Here Hugh Kennedy has written the book I always wanted. He wisely concentrates on medieval Islam's golden age, the early Abbasid dynasty, when Baghdad ruled a large portion of the world-and, even more astutely, on the dramatic stories and personalities of the court. Let's face it, you read about the Abbasids because you want to know how the slave girl Khayzuran not only managed to marry the caliph but to quell a military revolt, why her son Harun al-Rashid was immortalized in The Arabian Nights, and why the all-powerful Barmakid family suddenly fell from grace to prison and execution. Kennedy brings the caliphs and their families to life. He's up front about the fact that the book is about aristocrats, but the common people of Baghdad, the "pickpockets and sellers of cheap sweets" who fought back when their city was besieged, and the middle class who developed Islamic tradition dance around the edge of the narrative.
Kennedy doesn't believe everything he reads, and doesn't think you will either. He repeats stories-like the "harem intrigue" tales, in which devious women are blamed for various deaths-that are almost certainly not true, but tell us something about the people who believed them, and are still enormously entertaining. He also is frank about the same-sex relationships, male and female, that were a part of the era's culture, without the awkwardness of many modern historians. And he's smart enough to explain the geography-why southern Iraq could support such a fabulously wealthy monarchy, and why the Afghanistan/NE Iran region was so critical to the faraway Middle East-in a way an American can understand. Very rare for books on Islamic history, the book boasts an excellent map, naming both cities and regions-invaluable for a hapless Westerner who doesn't know where the major cities of Iran are today, never mind where long-gone kingdoms like Yamama and Ushrusana used to be. There's also a surprisingly good index (another rarity).
The book isn't flawless. Kennedy twice awkwardly interrupts his straightforward account of political events with fascinating chapters on aspects of court culture-palaces, poetry, science, and (my favorite) women's lives. Unfortunately, this structure means the reader learns about the palace Mutawakkil built before she knows enough about him to care, and doesn't hear anything about Ma'mun patronage of scientific research until long after he's dead in the main narrative. The last chapter goes into far too much detail about the depressing downfall of the dynasty, short-changing a more interesting discussion about its legacy. But all in all Kennedy does a great job, and I for one plan down to hunt down his earlier books.
If you know nothing about Islamic history and want an accessible introduction to an fascinating period, or like me know a little and want to learn more, I highly recommend this book.
Rivetting narrative.......2006-01-14
This purely popular tale of the Baghdad Abbasid Caliphate is a wonderful book, full of splendor and tales of the times of the Caliphs, the Harem, early Islam, the founding of modern Baghdad, luxury, corruption, bad governance, murder, passion, rape, affluence gone wild, gluttony, exorbitance, decadence and political failure.
The Abbasids were the first dynasty following the first four `righteous' caliphs(Bakr, Omar, Uthman, Ali) who followed the death of Mohammed. The movement of the capital of Islam to Baghdad symbolized the secular transference of temporal power from its religious foundations into a colonial capital of imperial Islam, after-all the region around Baghdad, modern day Iraq, then Mesopotamia, was a country full of Jews, Zoroastrians, Pagans, Assyrian Christians, Nestorians, Jacobites, Gnosts and others. Muslims were a minority in this land. Baghdad was a new city created to rule a colonial empire that was recently created. The empire that the Abbasids ruled was wealthy beyond belief, corrupt, licentious, full of slander, moral turpitude and court scandals. This excellent tale of this period doesn't really shed light on the modern `conflict' as claimed but it is an excellent fascinating tale, unfortunately it doesn't follow the narrative of Baghdad through to its destruction by the Mongols, but only to the replacement of the Abbasids by the Fatamids who rode to power on the backs of Turkic immigrant warriors from the east, see the book `black banners from the east' for a narrative of the rise of the Fatamids. If this sheds light on anything to do with Islam and modern times it shows that fundamentalist Islam's accusations of Western power, wealth and immorality, are mirrored in the actions of early Islam, which resembled the modern day west far more than modern day Islam, an irony. Islam in the 8th century was far from the fundamentalist form we see today, however there is nothing admirable in its use of Harems and slavery.
Seth J. Frantzman
Book Description
"They assess the effectiveness of the organizing tactics employed, casting particular scrutiny on the courts as agents of social change...The authors have presented concrete examples, all the while making clear that there are no road maps for successful organizing."
— New York Law Journal
"This is an important and unusual bookÂ….It is an academic book on an important issue
—the environmental justice movement
—that is timely and relevant."
—Argumentation and Advocacy
When Bill Clinton signed an Executive Order on Environmental Justice in 1994, the phenomenon of environmental racism--the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards, particularly toxic waste dumps and polluting factories, on people of color and low-income communities--gained unprecedented recognition. Behind the President's signature, however, lies a remarkable tale of grassroots activism and political mobilization. Today, thousands of activists in hundreds of locales are fighting for their children, their communities, their quality of life, and their health.
From the Ground Up critically examines one of the fastest growing social movements in the United States, the movement for environmental justice. Tracing the movement's roots, Luke Cole and Sheila Foster combine long-time activism with powerful storytelling to provide gripping case studies of communities across the U.S--towns like Kettleman City, California; Chester, Pennsylvania; and Dilkon, Arizona--and their struggles against corporate polluters. The authors effectively use social, economic and legal analysis to illustrate the historical and contemporary causes for environmental racism. Environmental justice struggles, they demonstrate, transform individuals, communities, institutions and even the nation as a whole.
Customer Reviews:
Enviromental justice and grassroots advocacy.......2001-05-26
Anyone interested in community organizing, legal advocacy on behalf of community groups, and environmental justice work will benefit from this book's in-depth analysis of the struggles and achievements of neighborhood groups battling environmental injustice, and its valuable insights into community organizing strategies and the role of lawyers and the legal system in promoting social change. Although the authors fully acknowledge the prevalence of racism in our society and the lack of easy fixes to the problems faced by disadvantaged communities, they nevertheless convey an inspiring sense of idealism and optimism about the future possibilities for "the movement".
Environmental Justice.......2001-03-17
The story tells about history and environment racism. It has a very good idea of racism. It also talks about environmental justice. People would like this book. Two thumbs and eight fingers up!
Understanding Environmental Justice.......2001-03-17
For those people who want a wide-ranging introduction to the environmental justice movement and its legal arm, this is the place to turn. Written by a movement lawyer activist and a legal academic, this book captures the social and legal evolution of the environmental justice movement in a way that highlights the work of the communities themselves. Vigorously written, the book would be worth the price just for the chapter on transformative politics and its comprehensive annotated bibliography. A must have.
Amazon.com
The typical image of South-Central Los Angeles doesn't lend itself to peaceful and productive high schools. But as Los Angeles Times reporter Miles Corwin chronicles in this troubling yet uplifting book, the ills of the inner city have not completely defeated Toni Little's advanced-placement students at Crenshaw High School, with whom Corwin spent the 1996-1997 academic year as a silent observer. Having grown weary of writing about gang violence, drive-by shootings, and drug arrests, Corwin wanted "to find a way to write about the other children of South-Central, the students who avoid the temptations of the street, who strive for success, who, against all odds, in one of America's most impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods, manage to endure, to prevail, to succeed." He also wanted to show "how truly slanted the playing field remains, how inequality is built into a system touted as a meritocracy." Though 98 percent of the students in the gifted program go on to attend college, it takes a near superhuman effort for them to reach graduation day. In And Still We Rise, Corwin details exactly why.
Corwin's poignant portraits of the students and his sensitive evocation of the effort it requires for them to pursue their education are among the many strengths of the book. There's Olivia, the abused former runaway, ward of the county, and gifted student; Sadikifu, the promising Muslim rapper who constantly fights the gritty allure of gang life; and Toya, who lost her own mom to domestic violence and who struggles to balance schoolwork and motherhood. Corwin further explores the intricate intersections of affirmative action, educational expectations, urban neglect, and racism. By turns shocking and inspiring, this is journalistic work that gets to the core of its subject to reveal students who "value education, sacrifice much to further their educations, and overcome many obstacles--including even their own teachers--in order to obtain their educations." It shouldn't be so hard. --Eugene Holley Jr.
Book Description
Bestselling author of The Killing Season and veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Miles Corwin spent a school year with twelve high school seniors -- South-Central kids who qualified for a gifted program because of theur exceptional IQs and test scores. Sitting alongside them in classrooms where bullets were known to rip through windows, Corwin chronicled their amazing odyssey as they faced the greatest challenges of their academic lives. And Still We Rise is an unforgettable story of transcending obstacles that would dash the hopes of any but the most exceptional spirits.
Customer Reviews:
Revealing and insightful.......2005-01-09
This book is the first documentary that I've read that I could not put down. It offers great insight into the life of inner city school kids who struggle with so much more than the average high school student. As a student at an elite university and an LA native, I am shocked at how different the paths that lead to college are for people who might be sitting right next to each other in class. It is a must read for anybody who thinks affirmative action is unfair and who believes that everybody has equal rights in the USA. The playing field has to be leveled and this book shows you why.
Bright Spots in Blight Places.......2004-12-31
This is an extraordinary tale following children who, against all the odds, seem to find comfort and safe haven in their desire to learn. I was fascinated by the struggle to see the next step for some of these kids, however. Even though they clearly value the education they are getting, the giant leap from the struggles of a neighborhood High School to a distant College Campus seems to really define how hard it is for these kids to break the cycle of poverty and broken homes most have experienced.
I am not an educator. I was motivated to buy this book after hearing it recommended on Imus. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and wonder what it will take to overhaul our dismal education systems.
A Quiet Crisis.......2004-05-08
I fell in love with South Central Los Angeles through reading this book. Corwin has this style of writing that is so elegant and wordy and, ugh! I can't put into words how much this book meant to me. I just finished a class on Multicultural Education and this book was a required text. Through reading this book and "Affirming Diversity" by Sonia Nieto, which I highly recommend for anyone in the teaching field or entering into the teaching field, I was able to connect the information I was reading in the textbook to the real life examples Corwin writes about. The stories of these twelve teens are compelling and my emotions soared throughout the book. Corwin educates readers about affirmative action, resistance theory, and other theories involved in the education system through his writing of experiences in Crenshaw High School. I can't stress enough how much I recommend this book to any reader. It is life changing.
Compeling Commentary.......2002-08-23
"And Still We Rise" was a compelling look at a group of students rarely disscussed. Inner city students who not only go to school to get by but against great odds are able to beat the odds and succeed in school. "And Still We Rise" follows a group of students attending Crenshaw High School enrolled in their gifted students program. "And Still We Rise" looks at the daily obsticals and pitfalls of the gifted program students face as they try to attain a better life through education. "And Still We Rise" also causes those of us in the educational community to question the way we look present day educational issues as well as our students. "And Still We Rise" is both inspirational as well as insightfull. I highly recommend this book for all people, especially those in education.
A Conversation Piece.......2002-07-10
I read "And Still We Rise" aloud with two friends, and we were then able to discuss each chapter, which I found very helpful with this book. "And Still We Rise" is emotionally laden with questions, and inspires conversation about the state of affairs in our country, our inner cities, our schools and our homes. The book is dense with remarks which make a person question his own beliefs, or her previously unchallenged opinions.
Though his writing style is not as smooth or polished as I would have liked, at times, Corwin's heart is in the right place and he seeks to convey the classes and students in a realistic light. He does a good job at providing a complete picture of each of his main character students.
I also recommend "Makes me Wanna Holler" by Nathan McCall, about the journey of one black man growing up in the inner city, and "Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know" by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Reading "Cultural Literacy" in the midst of the Little/Moultrie argument about curriculum provides an interesting discourse.
Book Description
The evolution of New York's built environment is chronicled in this breathtaking history organized chronologically by site-from architectural masterpieces to engineering marvels. Witness New York as it was being built in the years following the Civil War. It was during this era when the city spread uptown, landscaped Central Park, engineered the bridges and subways, and scaled ever higher in the form of innovative skyscrapers.The New York story unfolds in these pages with an immediacy only photography can capture. It allows us to relive the moment when the theaters moved uptown followed by the city's "newspaper of record," and muddy, horse-trodden Longacre Square sprouted its iconic neon signs and was reborn as Times Square. Trace the growth by accretion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as it nibbled away at the park or the transformation of Fifth Avenue into "millionaires row." Along the way, the majestic history of the city unfolds along with the story of the visionaries whose stamp it bears today. New York's coming of age coincided with the rise of photography, and this incredible trove of photographs culled from the archives of Time Life and the New-York Historical Society are the very images that created the larger-than-life reputation of New York that continues to dazzle the world today.
Customer Reviews:
Dramatic Photographs of How the City Came to Be.......2005-12-03
Beginning with the 1811 grid plan of 100 foot wide north-south avenues and 155 cross streets set at 200 foot intervals this book shows the story of how Manhattan came to be in a brilliant collection of photographs. Actually the pictures begin with engravings dating from before photographs existed, but the book is mostly photographs from the late 1800's to the drawings of the proposed Fredom Tower at the World Trade Center site.
The photographs cover Manhattan. How central park came to be is discussed as are the bridges and tunnels that provide access to the city. Sailing ships from an 1883 picture are near those of the New York Naval Shipyard (which alone built more ships during World War II than did all of Japan). Air liners from a TWA DC-3 to Pan Am's new Boing 707 at their dramatic terminal at Idlewild is only a page away from a Pan-Am clipper flying boat at La Guardia's Marine Air Terminal.
This is a very dramatic collection of pictures that truly reflects the Rise and Rise of the Greatest City on Earth.
Amazon.com
The rise of rock-and-roll--in a nutshell, with particular attention paid to the business side of the equation. Charlie Gillett, a British journalist, loves the music, and his passion is evident throughout. Yet the greatest strength of the book is the way Gillett tracks the resistance of the music industry to early rock-and-roll, which was followed (needless to say) by a frantic rush to engulf and devour it.
Customer Reviews:
Sound of the city?.......2007-01-09
I won't go as far as to say this is the best book ever written about pop-music. It definitely has it good points, especially in the beginning chapter about the different areas of music, styles etc. After that it is more a long list of paragraphs on bands. They fit superbly into the canon of music into the 1970's.
There were some interesting facts that I didn't know which really made me enjoy the book (like a Monkee writing 'Different Drum').
In the end of the book is a list of songs, a sort of canonical list that fits neatly into the storyline.
THE BEST I HAVE READ ON THIS SUBJECT BY FAR.......2006-09-21
This work is comprehensive, well researched and just as importantly, well written. Not only is the music addressed, but the problems this music encountered in the early years, something that is now often forgotten, is throughly examined. The social impact of this music, one of the most important aspects in my way of feeling, is examined in great detail. Of less personal interest to me was the business end, but that is just me, but I feel that many would find this fascinating as well as the rest. This work goes along way in helping understand R&R, our society in general and our culture in particular. I found this to be a well organized, easy read and one that I do recommend for your library.
Great but not for musical reasons.......2006-06-01
The Sound of the City is informative and provides a detailed account of the economical, artistic, and sociological forces that shaped pop music at the beginning of the 20th century. The detailed listening list at the end of the book is helpful and serves as an excellent propaedeutic to its study.
A must have book.......2006-02-25
This book by Charlie Gillet has to be the ultimate guide to anyone who has an interest in popular music from the 50's and 60's upwards.I promised myself this book when it first came out, but never got around to purchasing it, until last month.
All I can say is it was worth the wait!!
I remember the NME in the UK giving it rave reviews whe it was first published, these were not misplaced. Go on, treat yourself and buy it.
The best book on Rock 'n' Roll ever written.......1999-08-28
As rock 'n' roll recedes into the past, what actually was rock 'n roll becomes less and less clear. The Sound of the City, first written some thirty years ago, remains the best book on the subject. Period. I know. I was there listening to it all as it unfolded.
Gillett weaves the various forms together -- vocal group, jump blues, southern pop gospel, urban big band blues, rockabilly -- and constructs a means to understand it as a musical movement.
An important strength is the emphasis on location and record label, something few younger critics understand today. We called it all rock 'n' roll then, although as Gillett relates, it all turned into blues for teenagers.
The Sound of the City remains the best overall description of the music of the 1946-1964 era.
Book Description
City of Speed traces the rise of Southern California’s racers and speed merchants from the days of hopped-up Model Ts to tomorrow’s phenom. Insider Joe Scalzo details the stories behind the race shops, speed parts companies, racers, millionaire sportsmen, hot rod artists and fabricators, and the myriad tracks, and watering holes where automotive history happens at top speed.
Customer Reviews:
Bad service.......2007-10-17
I can't review because I still haven't received the book!!!!! What is going on???????
Bad service!!!!!!!!!!!
Disappointing book (3 stars my be a bit generous".......2007-05-29
The cover image and description seem rather misleading to me. the subject matter is one that is certainly worthy of a great book and my expectations were high. This book, essentially, is a collection of stories by a guy who was obviously involved with a number of early L.A. engine builders, hot rodders, Bonneville salt flats racers, and 50's & 60's garage constructors who built and raced sports cars. It covers a lot of topics, but with no apparent research, depth, organization and details that might have provided a comprehensive history. Many of the photos are not ones that I haven't seen before and they are accompanied by general captions that often don't even identity the driver. It reads as if the author sat back in a chair, free-associated and dictated it from memory - with a few profanities and too much period slang thrown in. I found it to be more personal and less informative than I had hoped. Perhaps a more accurate title would be "Early Racing in Los Angeles: Memories, Stories and Photos From One Man Who Was There."
Amazon.com
For a good, spicy read about colonial Asia's most decadent city, this is the book. Stella Dong, a second-generation Chinese-American living in New York, tells the story of Old Shanghai in racy style: readers expecting tales of drugs, prostitution, and gang warfare will not be disappointed. Her scholarship is sound, however, and at the end of each chapter she provides bibliographies of drier, more academic studies for those wishing to delve deeper.
The Treaty of Nanking that ended the First Opium War between Britain and China in 1842 granted trading concessions in Shanghai to the European powers. The international currents shaping the city over the next hundred years were complex: British merchants, Chinese warlords, Russian emigrés, Sephardic Jews, and German spies exploited its extraterritorial status to make Shanghai a hotbed of greed, vice, and intrigue. Opium was crucial to the city's extraordinary wealth and lawlessness, though Dong also relates the rise of its criminal gangs to the development of coastal steamships and consequent loss of inland-transportation jobs. Foreign participation in the opium trade was not confined to the British: the role of the French Concession in Shanghai is described in well-researched detail. The flamboyant personalities that prospered in the city's unfettered environment come alive, characters like Pockmarked Huang, who combined the post of police chief in the French Concession with leadership of the Green Gang. Dong explores Shanghai's political significance both as the source of Chiang Kai-shek's fortunes and as a center of Communist revolutionary activity. As the city again becomes the leading commercial metropolis of a dynamic national economy, Shanghai 1842-1949 successfully documents its unique role in the development of modern China. --John Stevenson
Book Description
Transformed from a swampland wilderness into a dazzling, modern–day Babylon, the Shanghai that predated Mao's cultural revolution was a city like no other: redolent with opium and underworld crime, booming with foreign trade, blessed with untold wealth and marred by abject squalor.
Journalist Stella Dong captures all the exoticism, extremes, and excitement of this legendary city as if it were a larger–than–life character in a fantastic novel.
Customer Reviews:
Entertaining History of Shanghai.......2007-07-10
I read this shortly after my return from a trip to Shanghai and found it to be an engrossing, fast read. I prefer travel literature to straight history, so I'm not overly concerned with whether something is perfectly accurate (which no history is, anyhow). If you want to get a flavor for Shanghai as it was and pick up a number of entertaining facts (or factoids) along the way, read this.
Easy Reading .......2007-04-11
Very informative, easy ready, learned a lot in just the first 10 pages. Great author.
Decadent pleasures.......2006-03-09
Stella Dong's bid to enter the ever-burgeoning world of "lite" cultural histories of important world cities (such as the city studies of Jan Morris) is nothing if not entertaining, and her account of life in the "Old Shanghai" from between the Opium War and the Communist Revolution moves along with a wealth of all sorts of interesting social tidbits about a city that was notorious site of decadence and pleasure-seeking for decades in the West and East alike. Because the work is somewhat gossipy and lightweight in nature it might have benefitted from a sharper sense of humor and irony, or from a more personal point of view (all of which we see in Jan Morris's work). At the very least, it needs at least some photographs of its primary locales and figures, and also clearer chapter subdivisions--at times, the book just seems to grind along somewhat from topic to topic with little direction. But it still is a fun overview of a very fascinating site for the colonialist imagination
Misses the mark, but has its positives.......2005-08-03
I live in Shanghai part time and this book is interesting to me because I can walk around the city and imagine... but the book seems very biased and is more interested in sensationalizing the city then a true analysis of the wonder that is Shanghai. In a way I am saddened by her reflection because it runs down the same path as most 'Westernized' views of China; I realize that this sells books, but when will authors take the responsibilty of serious reflection about place and significance rather than feed the reader with exotic half-truths. Before I ramble more (my highscool grammar teacher will cry if she reads this), I would suggest that one decide what they want out of a this book before purchasing... If you want a decently engaging story - this is ok... If you want to know about Shanghai's 'essence' look elsewhere, Stella Dong misses the real story and the real city.
Casablanca on the Yangste.......2005-04-27
"Shanghai", the book, is a good history of one of the world's great crossroads. Stella Dong follows the fortunes of Shanghai for 107 years and enlivens the chronicle with hundreds of its colorful and sometimes truly unsavory denizens. From its main formative event, the Opium War of 1839-42, to the closing of an era with the takeover of the communists in 1949, Shanghai was filled and refilled with sharpers and refugees from around the globe.
The Opium War, less a war than a program of intimidation conducted by the British to protect the "right" of Scottish magnates and Iraqi Jews and others to sell opium in Chinese ports, led to a treaty in 1842 which provided for the establishment of a foreign section in Shanghai. Here, the British and other nationalities could operate without being subject to the laws of China.
So, like Hong Kong, the foreign section became a piece of Europe grafted onto China. The British, then the Americans and the French, operated what amounted to microcolonies almost completely devoted to commerce. The opium trade was foremost, followed by cotton, but the trade in human beings was also big in Shanghai, so much so that the very name of the city was given to the practice of abducting Chinese. American, British, and French companies kidnapped or "Shanghaied" Chinese men and took them away in ships resembling slave ships to work in mines and plantations in the Americas under conditions very similar to slavery.
Christian missionaries, who had operated in China for centuries, now had more clout and a safe base of operations from which to wield it. They started drives to abolish prostitution and foot-binding, the latter being a thousand-year-old practice peculiar to the Chinese. They were successful, according to Dong, in eradicating foot-binding in a relatively short period of time (30 years). I had heard of foot-binding before, and I knew that at some point it had stopped, but before reading this book I didn't know that missionaries had started the drive to abolish it. If true, it certainly counterbalances some of the less humane things the missionaries are known for.
The Japanese showed up in Shanghai in 1894 after winning a war with China, and demanded the same sort of privileges as the Europeans and Americans. Not content with just a part of Shanghai, however, they would shortly return for all of it. In the mean time, the Bolsheviks triumphed in Russia, and White Russian refugees flooded into Shanghai from Vladivostok to the north. Dong notes that this was a type of European the Shanghainese had not seen before: destitute and desperate. Yet just as they blended into the other cities of the Russian exodus such as Berlin and New York, the Russians were soon an integral part of Shanghai, thriving chiefly in the various realms of nightlife: cabarets, tearooms, restaurants, dance halls...
By 1920 all the elements were assembled for a scene as glamorous and decadent as any the world has seen, and it played out in Shanghai against the backdrop of one of the world's oldest monarchies changing into a republic. Like all great parties, however, it lasted but a moment. The Japanese came and shut things down in 1937. After they were defeated, the Shanghainese had only four short years to recover before the Chinese Communists came and put an end to any sort of foreign influence that remained.
Dong keeps strictly to 1949 as her endpoint, and one can't fault her for that. Still, it would be very interesting to know the fate of all the capitalist enterprises that thrived in the city. Is there any connection at all, for example, between any of the old merchant houses and the burgeoning Chinese communist/capitalists who work there now? After all, there was only about 30 years from 1949 to the time that Deng proclaimed "to get rich is glorious". Perhaps more than just the buildings on the Bund survive.
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The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe (Themes in International Urban History)
Adriaan Verhulst
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521469090 |
Book Description
Verhulst examines fifteen towns, mainly situated on the rivers Meuse and Scheldt and along the North Sea coast of present day Belgium, Holland and France. He details the impact of political, military, ecclesiastical, economic and social factors on the development of towns from market towns to industrial centers. Arranged chronologically, the book charts the settlement and subsequent growth of the towns from the fourth to the twelfth centuries. Well illustrated with maps and with a full bibliography, this book will prove essential reading for students and scholars of historical and urban geography.
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For more than fifty years no synthesis has been written which systematically examines the growth and development of cities in north-west Europe. Adriaan Verhulst takes as his subject the history of urban settlements and towns in the region between the rivers Somme and Meuse from the late Roman period (fourth century) to the end of the twelfth century. This region comprises Flanders and LiËge, two of the most urbanized areas, not only in the southern Netherlands but in northwestern Europe as a whole until the twelfth century. Fifteen towns are studied in all, and, supported by numerous maps, Professor Verhulst provides rich details of the impact of political, military, ecclesiastical, as well as social and economic, factors on the developing towns as they were transformed from regional markets to centres of industry and international commerce.
Book Description
"A fascinating story . . . Those who delighted in Caro's Power Broker will relish City in the Sky." -Thomas Bender, The New York Times Book Review The World Trade Center was the biggest and brashest icon that New York has ever produced-a pair of magnificent giants that became intimately familiar around the globe. In this vivid, brilliantly researched narrative, New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton re-create the life of the World Trade Center from its genesis in David Rockefeller's ambition to rebuild lower Manhattan to the spirited battles with local storeowners and powerful politicians who opposed it, to the bold structural engineering innovations that would later determine who lived and died in its collapse. And like David McCullough's The Great Bridge, City in the Sky is a riveting story of New York itself- of architectural daring, political maneuvering, human ambition and frailty, and a lost American icon.
Customer Reviews:
Satisfies a Lot Of Questions.......2007-02-01
I enjoyed this book, mostly because I had many, many questions about the politics and the economics of the WTC. If that's your purpose in picking this book, you'll do fine.
However, "The Rise and Fall" certainly implies a lot of coverage of the collapse of the towers. This, while covered, is not dealt with in as thorough a manner as in many other documentaries. So, as with many things, your pleasure with the book is a function of your expectations. I liked it a lot, but, from what other reviewers say below, I can understand why others feel much less enthusiastic.
Wait for the Paperback.......2005-02-10
"City in the Sky" is a well- researched, well -documented account of the site acquisition, construction, and eventual collapse of the New York World Trade Center. (There are other WTCs). It is immediately obvious that the authors have conducted extensive interviews and research. Full disclosure: This reviewer worked at the facility for 24 years for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Most of the anecdotes retold in CIS are just as I originally heard them years ago. (With some exceptions: On Austin Tobin's first trip on the newly acquired Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, the sleeping drunk supposedly woke up long enough to bid the Executive Director "good evening" before passing out again. Also, some of the PA titles are inaccurate, though not wrong. There was one obvious leg-pull about a "mailroom worker".) CIS in really 3 stories in one: The first is the strongest: That tale encompasses the struggle to condemn the surrounding real estate, overcome local opposition and secure Governmental cooperation for the project. Those who enjoyed such works as Robert Caro's "The Power Broker" will be in their element here. The second is concerned with the actual construction of the 2 towers and satellite buildings. The authors manage to include just enough technical details to tell the story without allowing this section of CIS to become too technical. The final part deals with that tragic day we now call 9/11. This reviewer does not wish to minimize that awful event but this tale has been told better, or as well, elsewhere. One assumes its' inclusion was virtually mandatory in a 400+ page work on the Trade Center but it emerges, perhaps strangely, as the weakest section of CIS. This reviewer hopes he was mistaken when he read that some of the victims who jumped to their deaths were in fact pushed by co-workers needing window space. A major difficulty with the text is that the authors appear too inclined to blame the Port Authority for inadequate fireproofing of the towers. This may-or may NOT! -be so but this serious charge is not substantiated here. Furthermore the PA executive most of the allegations are heaped upon has been dead for some 20 years and is hardly in a position to defend himself. CIS' strength is the relating of the struggles to build the Towers in the light of another era. Those were the days of Radio Row, a vastly different New York City, the maximum power of the Rockefeller Family and what those a bit older that this reviewer fondly remember as the "good old days" at Mother PONYA. CIS is entirely worthwhile but far from urgent reading. Amazoners may wish to wait for the more moderate prices of a paperback edition. That event would warrant a 4th star.
The best of the bunch.......2004-08-05
As a child, I watched the World Trade Center go up. As an adult, I had been through the Center thousands of times and ate many a lunch in the plaza between the two beautiful towers. Although I worked only three blocks north of the WTC, I was nowhere near them on 9/11, and thank God for that. I don't think I could have been able to bear witnessing their destruction.
To fill the void, I began reading everything about the World Trade Center that I could. Eric Darton's book, "Divided We Stand", published before 9/11, was okay but I found the second-person narration and its choppy presentation too distracting. Several other books were published after the devestation, but they all seemed like rush jobs trying to cash in on the disaster. However, "City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center" by James Glanz and Eric Lipton is by far the best of the bunch. Meticulously researched without being too scholarly, the authors present a biography of the center that was filled with controversy, behind-closed-doors intrigues, political wrestling and, ultimately, the construction and engineering marvels that allowed the towers to rise. The pacing is remarkably swift but nothing is glossed over. The final quarter of the book is about 9/11 and afterward. I began this section with dread and was tempted not to read it at all. Fortunately, Glanz and Lipton handled it with incredible sensitivity.
"City in the Sky", like the towers themselves, is a remarkable collaboration: the narrative is seamless--like Burrows and Wallace's "Gotham". And, ultimately, this book is a lively and poignant tribute to the World Trade Center they must have loved.
Rocco Dormarunno,
author of "The Five Points"
The saga of the WTC from its initial conception in 1939.......2004-05-22
It is all right here. From the germ of the idea at the 1939 New York World's Fair to the design and planning of a project unlike any other in the history of mankind to the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001. New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton have pieced together the complete history that needed to be told. "City In The Sky" is the remarkable story of how the World Trade Center came to be. It is a riveting tale from start to finish. Learn about those who first envisioned this project way back in the late 1940's and of the considerable role politics would play in this saga over the ensuing decades. You will be introduced to Lawrence A. Wien, owner of the Empire State Building, who fought this project tooth and nail. And you'll meet one Oscar Nadel, owner of a small appliance business that would be displaced by the World Trade Center. Put yourself in his shoes and in the shoes of hundreds of other small business people who were to be evicted in the wake of this massive project.
Glanz and Lipton also devote a considerable amount of time to the struggle between the City of New York and the New York and New Jersey Port Authority for control of this enormous project.
You will learn why the WTC was located where it was and
about all of the people who made this concept a reality from the visionary David Rockerfeller to the unconventional architect Minoru Yamasaki to powerful Port Authority chairman Austin Tobin. And of course, you will read once again of the tragic events of 9/11 and see how decisions made decades earlier may have helped decide who would live and who would die on that fateful day. Were corners cut during construction? Was the fireproofing used adequate? And were the consequences of an airliner crashing into the Twin Towers ever seriously considered? So many questions. This is an important book that helps you to unravel some of the complex issues here.
Recommended.
An excellent history of the WTC...........2004-05-11
This book is an excellent history of the World Trade Center towers, from their conception in the early 1960's to their eventual destruction on 9/11/2001. This book avoids many of the political biases generally associated with this subject, and instead simply tells the story. Surprsingly, the book is a quick read, much like a novel. Highly recommended!
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