The Early Urban Exposé Novel in America
Title | The Early Urban Exposé Novel in America PDF eBook |
Author | Christopher James Forbes |
Publisher | |
Pages | 638 |
Release | 1982 |
Genre | American fiction |
ISBN |
Segregation
Title | Segregation PDF eBook |
Author | Carl H. Nightingale |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 539 |
Release | 2016-07-11 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 022637971X |
When we think of segregation, what often comes to mind is apartheid South Africa, or the American South in the age of Jim Crow—two societies fundamentally premised on the concept of the separation of the races. But as Carl H. Nightingale shows us in this magisterial history, segregation is everywhere, deforming cities and societies worldwide. Starting with segregation’s ancient roots, and what the archaeological evidence reveals about humanity’s long-standing use of urban divisions to reinforce political and economic inequality, Nightingale then moves to the world of European colonialism. It was there, he shows, segregation based on color—and eventually on race—took hold; the British East India Company, for example, split Calcutta into “White Town” and “Black Town.” As we follow Nightingale’s story around the globe, we see that division replicated from Hong Kong to Nairobi, Baltimore to San Francisco, and more. The turn of the twentieth century saw the most aggressive segregation movements yet, as white communities almost everywhere set to rearranging whole cities along racial lines. Nightingale focuses closely on two striking examples: Johannesburg, with its state-sponsored separation, and Chicago, in which the goal of segregation was advanced by the more subtle methods of real estate markets and housing policy. For the first time ever, the majority of humans live in cities, and nearly all those cities bear the scars of segregation. This unprecedented, ambitious history lays bare our troubled past, and sets us on the path to imagining the better, more equal cities of the future.
Untimely Ruins
Title | Untimely Ruins PDF eBook |
Author | Nick Yablon |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 397 |
Release | 2010-06-15 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 0226946657 |
American ruins have become increasingly prominent, whether in discussions of “urban blight” and home foreclosures, in commemorations of 9/11, or in postapocalyptic movies. In this highly original book, Nick Yablon argues that the association between American cities and ruins dates back to a much earlier period in the nation’s history. Recovering numerous scenes of urban desolation—from failed banks, abandoned towns, and dilapidated tenements to the crumbling skyscrapers and bridges envisioned in science fiction and cartoons—Untimely Ruins challenges the myth that ruins were absent or insignificant objects in nineteenth-century America. The first book to document an American cult of the ruin, Untimely Ruins traces its deviations as well as derivations from European conventions. Unlike classical and Gothic ruins, which decayed gracefully over centuries and inspired philosophical meditations about the fate of civilizations, America’s ruins were often “untimely,” appearing unpredictably and disappearing before they could accrue an aura of age. As modern ruins of steel and iron, they stimulated critical reflections about contemporary cities, and the unfamiliar kinds of experience they enabled. Unearthing evocative sources everywhere from the archives of amateur photographers to the contents of time-capsules, Untimely Ruins exposes crucial debates about the economic, technological, and cultural transformations known as urban modernity. The result is a fascinating cultural history that uncovers fresh perspectives on the American city.
Urban Rehearsals and Novel Plots in the Early American City
Title | Urban Rehearsals and Novel Plots in the Early American City PDF eBook |
Author | Betsy Klimasmith |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 276 |
Release | 2022-01-27 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 0192846213 |
Urban Rehearsals and Novel Plots in the Early American City sheds new light on the literature of the early US by exploring how literature, theatre, architecture, and images worked together to allow readers to imagine themselves as urbanites even before cities developed. In the four decades following the Revolutionary War, the new nation was a loose network of nascent cities connected by print. Before a national culture could develop, local city cultures took shape; literary texts played key roles in helping new Americans become city people. Drawing on extensive archival research, Urban Rehearsals argues that literature, particularly novels and plays, allowed Bostonians to navigate the transition from colonial town to post-revolution city, enabled Philadelphians to grieve their experiences of the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic and rebuild in the epidemic's aftermath, and showed New Yorkers how the domestic practices that reinforced their urbanity could be opened to the broader public. Throughout, attention to underrepresented voices and texts calls attention to the possibilities for women, immigrants, and Black Americans in developing urban spaces, while showing how those possibilities would be foreclosed as the nation developed. Balancing attention to canonical texts of the early Republic, including The Power of Sympathy, Charlotte Temple, and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, with novels whose depiction of early cities deserves greater attention, such as Ormond, The Boarding-School, Monima, and Kelroy, this volume shows how US cities developed on the pages and stages of the early Republic, building urban imaginations that would construct the nation's early cities.
Encyclopedia of American Urban History
Title | Encyclopedia of American Urban History PDF eBook |
Author | David Goldfield |
Publisher | SAGE |
Pages | 1057 |
Release | 2007 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0761928847 |
Publisher description
Arbitrary Lines
Title | Arbitrary Lines PDF eBook |
Author | M. Nolan Gray |
Publisher | Island Press |
Pages | 258 |
Release | 2022-06-21 |
Genre | Architecture |
ISBN | 1642832545 |
It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up
Rural Fictions, Urban Realities
Title | Rural Fictions, Urban Realities PDF eBook |
Author | Mark Storey |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 209 |
Release | 2013-02-07 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 0199893187 |
This study of late 19th-century American literature uses the period's rural fiction to reveal the increasingly intricate and sometimes problematic connections between urban and rural life.