City of Dreams & Nightmare

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Author :
Publisher : Watkins Media Limited
ISBN 13 : 0857660500
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (576 download)

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Book Synopsis City of Dreams & Nightmare by : Ian Whates

Download or read book City of Dreams & Nightmare written by Ian Whates and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THEY CALL IT "THE CITY OF A HUNDRED ROWS". City of Dreams & Nightmare is the first in a series of novels set in one of the most extraordinary fantasy settings since Gormenghast - the ancient vertical city of Thaiburley. From its towering palatial heights to the dregs who dwell in The City Below, this is a vast, multi-tiered metropolis, and demons are said to dwell in the Upper Heights... Having witnessed a murder in a part of the city he should never have been in, street thief Tom has to run for his life. Down through the vast city he is pursued by sky-borne assassins, sinister Kite Guards, and agents of a darker force intent on destabilising the whole city. Accused of the crime, he must use all of his knowledge of this ancient city to flee a certain death; his only ally is Kat, a renegade like him, but she has secrets of her own... File Under: Fantasy [ Towering City | Ancient Secrets | Murder Most Foul | Kite Guard! ]

City of Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691192790
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis City of Dreams by : Jerald Podair

Download or read book City of Dreams written by Jerald Podair and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid history of the controversial building of Dodger Stadium and how it helped transform Los Angeles When Walter O’Malley moved his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 with plans to construct a new ballpark, he ignited a bitter half-decade dispute over the future of a rapidly changing city. For the first time, City of Dreams tells the full story of the controversial building of Dodger Stadium and how it helped create modern Los Angeles. In a vivid narrative, Jerald Podair tells how the city was convulsed over whether, where, and how to build the stadium. Eventually, it was built on publicly owned land from which the city had uprooted a Mexican American community, raising questions about the relationship between private profit and “public purpose.” Indeed, the battle over Dodger Stadium crystallized issues with profound implications for all American cities. Filled with colorful stories, City of Dreams will fascinate anyone who is interested in the history of the Dodgers, baseball, Los Angeles, and the modern American city.

Small Cities with Big Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351201174
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (512 download)

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Book Synopsis Small Cities with Big Dreams by : Greg Richards

Download or read book Small Cities with Big Dreams written by Greg Richards and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can small cities make an impact in a globalizing world dominated by ‘world cities’ and urban development strategies aimed at increasing agglomeration? This book addresses the challenges of smaller cities trying to put themselves on the map, attract resources and initiate development. Placemaking has become an important tool for driving urban development that is sensitive to the needs of communities. This volume examines the development of creative placemaking practices that can help to link small cities to external networks, stimulate collaboration and help them make the most of the opportunities presented by the knowledge economy. The authors argue that the adoption of more strategic, holistic placemaking strategies that engage all stakeholders can be a successful alternative to copying bigger places. Drawing on a range of examples from around the world, they analyse small city development strategies and identify key success factors. This book focuses on the case of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a small Dutch city that used cultural programming to link itself to global networks and stimulate economic, cultural, social and creative development. It advocates the use of cultural programming strategies as a more flexible alternative to traditional top-down planning approaches and as a means of avoiding copying the big city. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

City of Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0544103858
Total Pages : 771 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (441 download)

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Book Synopsis City of Dreams by : Tyler Anbinder

Download or read book City of Dreams written by Tyler Anbinder and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By an acclaimed historian, a sweeping history of the peoples who have come to New York for four centuries: a defining American story of millions of immigrants, hundreds of languages, and one great city. New York has been America’s city of immigrants for nearly four centuries. Growing from Peter Minuit’s tiny settlement of 1626 to a clamorous metropolis with more than three million immigrants today, the city has always been a magnet for transplants from all over the globe. City of Dreams is the long-overdue, inspiring, and defining account of New York’s immigrants, both famous and forgotten: the young man from the Caribbean who relocated to New York and became a founding father; Russian-born Emma Goldman, who condoned the murder of American industrialists as a means of aiding downtrodden workers; Dominican immigrant Oscar de la Renta, who dressed first ladies from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama. Over ten years in the making, Tyler Anbinder’s story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs. In so many ways, today’s immigrants are just like those who came to America in centuries past—and their stories have never before been told with such breadth of scope, lavish research, and resounding spirit. "Told brilliantly, even unforgettably...An American story, one that belongs to all of us."—Boston Globe “A richly textured guide to the history of our immigrant nation’s pinnacle immigrant city has managed to enter the stage during an election season that has resurrected this historically fraught topic in all its fierceness.”—New York Times Book Review

Imaginary Cities

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022647030X
Total Pages : 573 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Imaginary Cities by : Darran Anderson

Download or read book Imaginary Cities written by Darran Anderson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we understand the infinite variety of cities? Darran Anderson seems to exhaust all possibilities in this work of creative nonfiction. Drawing inspiration from Marco Polo and Italo Calvino, Anderson shows that we have much to learn about ourselves by looking not only at the cities we have built, but also at the cities we have imagined. Anderson draws on literature (Gustav Meyrink, Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hasek, and James Joyce), but he also looks at architectural writings and works by the likes of Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius, Medieval travel memoirs from the Middle East, mid-twentieth-century comic books, Star Trek, mythical lands such as Cockaigne, and the works of Claude Debussy. Anderson sees the visionary architecture dreamed up by architects, artists, philosophers, writers, and citizens as wedded to the egalitarian sense that cities are for everyone. He proves that we must not be locked into the structures that exclude ordinary citizens--that cities evolve and that we can have input. As he says: "If a city can be imagined into being, it can be re-imagined as well.”

Barrio Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520937724
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Barrio Dreams by : Arlene Dávila

Download or read book Barrio Dreams written by Arlene Dávila and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-07-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arlene Dávila brilliantly considers the cultural politics of urban space in this lively exploration of Puerto Rican and Latino experience in New York, the global center of culture and consumption, where Latinos are now the biggest minority group. Analyzing the simultaneous gentrification and Latinization of what is known as El Barrio or Spanish Harlem, Barrio Dreams makes a compelling case that—despite neoliberalism's race-and ethnicity-free tenets—dreams of economic empowerment are never devoid of distinct racial and ethnic considerations. Dávila scrutinizes dramatic shifts in housing, the growth of charter schools, and the enactment of Empowerment Zone legislation that promises upward mobility and empowerment while shutting out many longtime residents. Foregrounding privatization and consumption, she offers an innovative look at the marketing of Latino space. She emphasizes class among Latinos while touching on black-Latino and Mexican-Puerto Rican relations. Providing a unique multifaceted view of the place of Latinos in the changing urban landscape, Barrio Dreams is one of the most nuanced and original examinations of the complex social and economic forces shaping our cities today.

Dreams in the New Century

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Author :
Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 081307231X
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Dreams in the New Century by : Gary R. Mormino

Download or read book Dreams in the New Century written by Gary R. Mormino and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florida Book Awards, Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction Florida Historical Society Charlton Tebeau Book Award A leading Florida historian explores one of the state’s most consequential eras It was a time of stunning episodes of boom and bust, an era of extremes, a decade of historic changes that point to Florida’s future. In this book, eminent historian Gary Mormino illuminates early twenty-first-century Florida and its connections to some of the most significant events in contemporary American history. Following Mormino’s milestone work Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams, which details the dynamic history of Florida from 1950 to 2000, Dreams in the New Century explores the state’s tumultuous next chapter, a period that included the Bush v. Gore election, 9/11, the housing bubble and Great Recession, and the election of Barack Obama. During these years the Elián González story engrossed the country, Tim Tebow rose to football fame, and Donald Trump became a Florida celebrity. From hurricanes to Ponzi schemes, red tides, climate change, the “Stand-Your-Ground” gun law, demographic diversity, and more, Florida offered nonstop news fodder that reflected its extraordinary internal trends and its importance in the nation. As Mormino shows, Florida is a place of deep conflicts—North and South, liberal and conservative, newcomer and local, growth and conservation—with histories that can be traced back centuries. In 2000‒2010, Mormino argues, these tensions collided to produce a “Big Bang” that will continue to resonate in years to come. Mormino takes stock of this crucible of change and explains the social, cultural, and political intricacies of a state the world struggles to understand. Dreams in the New Century unravels Florida’s complicated recent history in a gripping, informative, and fascinating narrative.

Cities of Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : Aulis Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9781898541028
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Cities of Dreams by : Stan Gooch

Download or read book Cities of Dreams written by Stan Gooch and published by Aulis Publishers. This book was released on 1995 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a work of breathtaking scope and originality. Yet Stan Gooch's reconstruction of the lost civilisation which preceded our own, and unlike other such attempts, is based at every turn on hard and accepted archaeological fact, the extensive red ochre mines of southern Africa (100,000-40,000 years Before Present) the bear skull altar of Drachenloch in Switzerland (75,000 years Before Present) the flower graves of Iraq (60,000 years Before Present). It is not just the case that we were not the first. It is the case, amazingly, that all ancient legends are true. The Minotaur did live at the centre of the maze, Sleeping Beauty did waken to the Knight's kiss, the fairy people did meet and dance in the moonlight, and Woman once ruled the whole magical Earth.

City of a Million Dreams

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Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 146964715X
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis City of a Million Dreams by : Jason Berry

Download or read book City of a Million Dreams written by Jason Berry and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In City of a Million Dreams, Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.

Everything Now

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Publisher : MCD
ISBN 13 : 0374721076
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Everything Now by : Rosecrans Baldwin

Download or read book Everything Now written by Rosecrans Baldwin and published by MCD. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER. NAMED A BEST CALIFORNIA BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES A provocative, exhilaratingly new understanding of the United States’ most confounding metropolis—not just a great city, but a full-blown modern city-state America is obsessed with Los Angeles. And America has been thinking about Los Angeles all wrong, for decades, on repeat. Los Angeles is not just the place where the American dream hits the Pacific. (It has its own dreams.) Not just the vanishing point of America’s western drive. (It has its own compass.) Functionally, aesthetically, mythologically, even technologically, an independent territory, defined less by distinct borders than by an aura of autonomy and a sense of unfurling destiny—this is the city-state of Los Angeles. Deeply reported and researched, provocatively argued, and eloquently written, Rosecrans Baldwin's Everything Now approaches the metropolis from unexpected angles, nimbly interleaving his own voice with a chorus of others, from canonical L.A. literature to everyday citizens. Here, Octavia E. Butler and Joan Didion are in conversation with activists and astronauts, vampires and veterans. Baldwin records the stories of countless Angelenos, discovering people both upended and reborn: by disasters natural and economic, following gospels of wealth or self-help or personal destiny. The result is a story of a kaleidoscopic, vibrant nation unto itself—vastly more than its many, many parts. Baldwin’s concept of the city-state allows us, finally, to grasp a place—Los Angeles—whose idiosyncrasies both magnify those of America, and are so fully its own. Here, space and time don’t quite work the same as they do elsewhere, and contradictions are as stark as southern California’s natural environment. Perhaps no better place exists to watch the United States’s past, and its possible futures, play themselves out. Welcome to Los Angeles, the Great American City-State.

Dream States

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Publisher : Coach House Books
ISBN 13 : 1770566805
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Dream States by : John Lorinc

Download or read book Dream States written by John Lorinc and published by Coach House Books. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2022 WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY WINNER OF FOR THE PATTIS FAMILY FOUNDATION GLOBAL CITIES BOOK AWARD Is the ‘smart city’ the utopia we’ve been waiting for? The promise of the so-called smart city has been at the forefront of urban planning and development since the early 2010s, and the tech industry that supplies smart city software and hardware is now worth hundreds of billions a year. But the ideas and approaches underpinning smart city tech raise tough and important questions about the future of urban communities, surveillance, automation, and public participation. The smart city era, moreover, belongs firmly in a longer historical narrative about cities — one defined by utopian ideologies, architectural visions, and technological fantasies. Smart streetlights, water and air quality tracking, autonomous vehicles: with examples from all over the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Portland, and Chicago, Dream States unpacks the world of smart city tech, but also situates this important shift in city-building into a broader story about why we still dream about perfect places. "John Lorinc’s incisive analysis in Dream States reminds us that the search for urban utopia is not new. Throughout the book, Lorinc underscores the fact that a gamut of urban innovations – from smart city megaprojects to e-government to pandemic preparedness tools – only provide promise when scrutinized together with the political, economic, social, and physical complexities of urban life." – Shauna Brail, University of Toronto "Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias takes us on a fascinating journey across world cities to show how technology has shaped them in the past and how smart city technology will reshape them in the future. This book is essential reading for policy makers, researchers, and practitioners interested in understanding the opportunities and challenges of smart city technology and what it means for city building." – Enid Slack, University of Toronto School of Cities "“Utopia may be the oldest grift in the city-building business, but Dream States shows that technology is a timeless tool for turning the most ordinary of urban dreams – clean air and water, safe streets, and decent homes – into reality. As digital dilettantes try to sell us on a software overhaul, John Lorinc provides us an indispensable and flawless guide to the must-haves and never-agains of the smart city.” – Anthony Townsend, Urbanist in Residence, Cornell Tech, author of Smart Cities

Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393080528
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams by : Charles King

Download or read book Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams written by Charles King and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of a National Jewish Book Award "Fascinating.…A humane and tragic survey of a great and tragic subject." —Jan Morris, Literary Review From Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist renegade Vladimir Jabotinsky and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, an astonishing cast of geniuses helped shape Odessa, a legendary haven of cosmopolitan freedom on the Black Sea. Drawing on a wealth of original sources and offering the first detailed account of the destruction of the city's Jewish community during the Second World War, Charles King's Odessa is both history and elegy—a vivid chronicle of a multicultural city and its remarkable resilience over the past two centuries.

City of American Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226282090
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis City of American Dreams by : Margaret Garb

Download or read book City of American Dreams written by Margaret Garb and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-12 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this vivid portrait of life in Chicago in the fifty years after the Civil War, Margaret Garb traces the history of the American celebration of home ownership. As the nation moved from an agrarian to an industrialized urban society, the competing visions of capitalists, reformers, and immigrants turned the urban landscape into a testing ground for American values. Neither a natural progression nor an inevitable outcome, the ideal of home ownership emerged from the struggles of industrializing cities. Garb skillfully narrates these struggles, showing how the American infatuation with home ownership left the nation's cities sharply divided along class and racial lines. Based on research of real estate markets, housing and health reform, and ordinary homeowners—African American and white, affluent and working class—City of American Dreams provides a richly detailed picture of life in one of America's great urban centers. Garb shows that the pursuit of a single-family house set on a tidy yard, commonly seen as the very essence of the American dream, resulted from clashes of interests and decades of struggle.

Hinterland Dreams

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812207009
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Hinterland Dreams by : Eric J. Morser

Download or read book Hinterland Dreams written by Eric J. Morser and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1840s, La Crosse, Wisconsin, was barely more than a trading post nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River. But by 1900 the sleepy frontier town had become a thriving city. Hinterland Dreams tracks the growth of this community and shows that government institutions and policies were as important as landscapes and urban boosters in determining the small Midwestern city's success. The businessmen and -women of La Crosse worked hard to attract government support during the nineteenth century. Federal, state, and municipal officials passed laws, issued rulings, provided resources, vested aldermen with financial and regulatory power, and created a lasting legal foundation that transformed the city and its economy. As historian Eric J. Morser demonstrates, the development of La Crosse and other small cities linked rural people to the wider world and provided large cities like Chicago with the lumber and other raw materials needed to grow even larger. He emphasizes the role of these municipalities, as well as their relationship to all levels of government, in the life of an industrializing nation. Punctuated with intriguing portraits of La Crosse's early citizens, Hinterland Dreams suggests a new way to understand the Midwest's urban past, one that has its roots in the small but vibrant cities that dotted the landscape. By mapping the richly textured political economy of La Crosse before 1900, the book highlights how the American state provided hinterland Midwesterners with potent tools to build cities and help define their region's history in profound and lasting ways.

Paris Dreams, Paris Memories

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Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804777519
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis Paris Dreams, Paris Memories by : Charles Rearick

Download or read book Paris Dreams, Paris Memories written by Charles Rearick and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A rich and entertaining history of the French capital’s predominant myths and ‘image-making’ from the nineteenth century to the present.” —Roxanne Panchasi, H-France Review How did Paris become the world favorite it is today? Charles Rearick argues that we can best understand Paris as several cities in one, each with its own history and its own imaginary shaped by dream and memory. Paris has long been at once a cosmopolitan City of Light and of modernity, a patchwork of time-resistant villages, a treasured heirloom, a hell for the disinherited, and a legendary pleasure dome. Focusing on the last century and a half, Paris Dreams, Paris Memories makes contemporary Paris understandable. It tells of renewal projects radically transforming neighborhoods and of counter-measures taken to perpetuate the city’s historic character and soul. It provides a historically grounded look at the troubled suburbs. Further, it tests long-standing characterizations of Paris’s uniqueness through comparisons with such rivals as London and Berlin. Paris Dreams, Paris Memories shows that in myriad forms—buildings, monuments, festivities, and artistic portrayals—contemporary Paris gives new life to visions of the city long etched in Parisian imaginations. “A pleasure to read.” —Catherine Clark, H-Urban “Fascinating.” —Nicoleta Bazgan, Contemporary French Civilization “Rearick is an expert guide.” —Jeffrey H. Jackson, Rhodes College “Like a pleasant stroll through the city, one finds much that one has already seen, but also plenty that one has not.” —Stephen Sawyer, French History “Rearick has written not so much a history of Paris, but a history of the history of Paris.” —William Irvine, York University

Material Dreams

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 019507260X
Total Pages : 494 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (95 download)

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Book Synopsis Material Dreams by : Kevin Starr

Download or read book Material Dreams written by Kevin Starr and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1990 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Material Dreams, Starr turns to one of the most vibrant decades in the Golden State's history, the 1920s, when some two million Americans migrated to California, the vast majority settling in or around Los Angeles. Although he treats readers to intriguing side trips to Santa Barbara and Pasadena, Starr focuses here mainly on Los Angeles, revealing how this major city arose almost defiantly on a site lacking many of the advantages required for urban development, creating itself out of sheer will, the Great Gatsby of American cities. He describes how William Ellsworth Smyth, the Peter the Hermit of the Irrigation Crusade, propounded the importance of water in Southern California's future, and how such figures as the self-educated, Irish engineer William Mulholland (who built the main aquaducts to Los Angeles) and George Chaffey (who diverted the Colorado River, transforming desert into the lush Imperial Valley) brought life-supporting water to the arid South. He examines the discovery of oil ("Yes it's oil, oil, oil / that makes LA boil," went the official drinking song of the Uplifters Club), the boosters and land developers, the evangelists (such as Bob Shuler, the Methodist Savanarola of Los Angeles, and Aimee Semple McPherson), and countless other colorful figures of the period. There are also fascinating sections on the city's architecture (such as the remarkably innovative Bradbury Building and its eccentric, neophyte designer, George Wyman), the impact of the automobile on city planning, the great antiquarian book collections, the Hollywood film community, and much more. By the end of the decade, Los Angeles had tripled in population and become the fifth largest city in the nation. In Material Dreams, Kevin Starr captures this explosive growth in a narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose.

Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022658528X
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth by : Paul Musselwhite

Download or read book Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth written by Paul Musselwhite and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-12-21 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The English settlers who staked their claims in the Chesapeake Bay were drawn to it for a variety of reasons. Some sought wealth from the land, while others saw it as a place of trade, a political experiment, or a potential spiritual sanctuary. But like other European colonizers in the Americas, they all aspired to found, organize, and maintain functioning towns—an aspiration that met with varying degrees of success, but mostly failure. Yet this failure became critical to the economy and society that did arise there. As Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth reveals, the agrarian plantation society that eventually sprang up around the Chesapeake Bay was not preordained—rather, it was the necessary product of failed attempts to build cities. Paul Musselwhite details the unsuccessful urban development that defined the region from the seventeenth century through the Civil War, showing how places like Jamestown and Annapolis—despite their small size—were the products of ambitious and cutting-edge experiments in urbanization comparable to those in the largest port cities of the Atlantic world. These experiments, though, stoked ongoing debate about commerce, taxation, and self-government. Chesapeake planters responded to this debate by reinforcing the political, economic, and cultural authority of their private plantation estates, with profound consequences for the region’s laborers and the political ideology of the southern United States. As Musselwhite makes clear, the antebellum economy around this well-known waterway was built not in the absence of cities, but upon their aspirational wreckage.