Book picks similar to
The Culture of Cities (Book 2) by Lewis Mumford
non-fiction
architecture
history
cities
The City Reader
Richard T. LeGates - 1996
It has been extensively updated to reflect the latest thinking on globalization, information technology and urban theory. Classic writings from such authors as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs and Le Corbusier, meet the best contemporary writings of, among others, Peter Hall, Saskia Sassen and Manuel Castells.
Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method
Kenneth Burke - 1966
And much of the material presented here was used in that course. The title should serve well to convey the gist of these various pieces. For all of them are explicitly concerned with the attempt to define and track down the implications of the term "symbolic action," and to show how the marvels of literature and language look when considered form that point of view.
Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices
Stuart Hall - 1997
Combining examples with activities and selected readings it offers a unique resource for teachers and students in cultural studies and related fields as an introduction to this complex and central theme.
Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency
Andrea Oppenheimer Dean - 2002
Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."In a time of unexampled prosperity, when architectural attention focuses on big, glossy urban projects, the Rural Studio provides an alternative of substance. In addition to being a social welfare venture, the Rural Studio--"Taliesin South" as Mockbee calls it--is also an educational experiment and a prod to the architectural profession to act on its best instincts. In giving students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, it extends their education beyond paper architecture. And in scavenging and reusing a variety of unusual materials, it is a model of sustainable architecture. The work of Rural Studio has struck such a chord-both architecturally and socially--that it has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, and CBS News, as well as in Time and People magazines.The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject."I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble"--Samuel Mockbee
Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy
John Rawls - 2000
This book brings together the lectures that inspired a generation of students--and a regeneration of moral philosophy. It invites readers to learn from the most noted exemplars of modern moral philosophy with the inspired guidance of one of contemporary philosophy's most noteworthy practitioners and teachers.Central to Rawls's approach is the idea that respectful attention to the great texts of our tradition can lead to a fruitful exchange of ideas across the centuries. In this spirit, his book engages thinkers such as Leibniz, Hume, Kant, and Hegel as they struggle in brilliant and instructive ways to define the role of a moral conception in human life. The lectures delineate four basic types of moral reasoning: perfectionism, utilitarianism, intuitionism, and--the ultimate focus of Rawls's course--Kantian constructivism. Comprising a superb course on the history of moral philosophy, they also afford unique insight into how John Rawls has transformed our view of this history.
It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes
Jeffrey Tucker - 2011
Meanwhile, the public sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter. Jeffrey Tucker, in this follow-up to his Bourbon for Breakfast, draws detailed attention to both. He points out that the products of digital capitalism are amazing, astounding, beyond belief-more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine. With this tiny box in hand, we can do a real-time video chat with anyone on the planet and pay nothing more than my usual service fee. This means that anyone on the planet can do business with and be friends with any other person on the globe. The borders, the limits, the barriers-they are all being blasted away. The pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal correspondence. Today young people are brief instant messaging through social media, but that's only for now, and who knows what next year will bring. Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this possible, which is the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of "miracle fatigue"-too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all. And why? It has something to do with the nature of the human mind, Tucker argues, which does not and This book will inspire love for free markets - and loathing of government.
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Samuel P. Huntington - 1996
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one of the most important books to have emerged since the end of the Cold War." --HENRY A. KISSINGERBased on the author's seminal article in Foreign Affairs, Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a provocative and prescient analysis of the state of world politics after the fall of communism. In this incisive work, the renowned political scientist explains how "civilizations" have replaced nations and ideologies as the driving force in global politics today and offers a brilliant analysis of the current climate and future possibilities of our world's volatile political culture."An intellectual tour de force: bold, imaginative, and provocative. A seminal work that will revolutionize our understanding of international affairs." --ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI"The book is studded with insights, flashes of rare brilliance, great learning, and in particular, an ability to see the familiar in a new and provocative way." --MICHAEL ELLIOTT, THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD"A benchmark for informed speculation on those always fascinating questions: Just where are we in history? What hidden hand is controlling our destiny?...A searching reflection on our global state." --RICHARD BERNSTEIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES"This is what is so stunning about The Clash of Civilizations: It is not just about the future, but may actually help to shape it." --WANG GUNGWU, THE NATIONAL INTEREST
How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken
Alex Marshall - 2001
Marshall argues that urban life has broken down because of our basic ignorance of the real forces that shape cities-transportation systems, industry and business, and political decision making. He explores how these forces have built four very different urban environments-the decentralized sprawl of California's Silicon Valley, the crowded streets of New York City's Jackson Heights neighborhood, the controlled growth of Portland, Oregon, and the stage-set facades of Disney's planned community, Celebration, Florida. To build better cities, Marshall asserts, we must understand and intelligently direct the forces that shape them. Without prescribing any one solution, he defines the key issues facing all concerned citizens who are trying to control urban sprawl and build real communities. His timely book will be important reading for a wide public and professional audience.
Confessions of a Heretic
Roger Scruton - 2016
Scruton explores the conflict between the Christian-inspired Enlightenment and Islam, and attempts to find a remedy for the void at the heart of our civilisation. Why do we capitulate before everyone more ignorant than ourselves? Why do we turn immediately on all those who wish to defend our rooted values against whatever invading force has appeared over the horizon? These hard-hitting essays from a profound intellect threaten the bedrock of conventional opinion.
Making Sense
Sam Harris - 2013
With over one million downloads per episode, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest - and sometimes both - lose their footing, but always in search off a greater understanding of the world in which we live. for Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or controversial, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress.This book includes a dozen of the best conversations from 'MAKING SENSE', including talks with Daniel Kahneman, Timothy Snyder, Nick Bostrom, and Glen Loury, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to living ethically. Together they shine a light on what it means to "make sense" in the modern world.RUNNING TIME ⇒ 22hrs.©2020 Sam Harris (P)2020 HarperAudio
Two Tribes: Liverpool, Everton and a City on the Brink
Tony Evans - 2016
Pumped with pride and passion, the two best teams in Europe are about to engage in a gladiatorial battle in front of 100,000 fanatical supporters. But this is not just another match, another cup final. On this warm day in May, the future of English football – and a city’s reputation – is on the line.
A year before this momentous Cup Final, Liverpool fans had been involved in the Heysel disaster. Thirty-nine people had died in the decaying stadium – a tragedy which cast a long, dark shadow over the sport. English clubs were banned from Continental competition, and football reached its lowest point. Tony Evans’s Two Tribes recalls the tumultuous 1985/86 season and the titanic struggle for supremacy between the two great Merseyside clubs. Set against a backdrop of social and political turmoil, it reveals the full impact of Thatcher’s policies, the vibrant northwest music scene and the burgeoning anti-establishment vibe on the streets and on the terraces. Giving voice to players, managers, politicians and musicians, Two Tribes follows the remarkable twists and turns of a season and how Merseysiders took over London for one unforgettable day with deafening chants of ‘Merseyside! Merseyside!’ ringing around Wembley Stadium. Ultimately, this is the story of Liverpool’s renaissance and Everton’s private agony, masked by a show of solidarity and communal spirit on the day, and how a season which began in shame ended in pride.
Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life
Colin Ellard - 2010
Here he offers an entirely new way to understand our cities—and ourselves.” —CHARLES MONTGOMERY, author of Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban DesignOur surroundings can powerfully affect our thoughts, emotions, and physical responses, whether we’re awed by the Grand Canyon or Hagia Sophia, panicked in a crowded room, soothed by a walk in the park, or tempted in casinos and shopping malls. In Places of the Heart, Colin Ellard explores how our homes, workplaces, cities, and nature—places we escape to and can’t escape from—have influenced us throughout history, and how our brains and bodies respond to different types of real and virtual space. As he describes the insight he and other scientists have gained from new technologies, he assesses the influence these technologies will have on our evolving environment and asks what kind of world we are, and should be, creating.Colin Ellard is the author of You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon, but Get Lost in the Mall. A cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo and director of its Urban Realities Laboratory, he lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia
Pankaj Mishra - 2012
But Pankaj Mishra shows that it was otherwise in this stereotype-shattering book. His enthralling group portrait of like minds scattered across a vast continent makes clear that modern Asia’s revolt against the West is not the one led by faith-fired terrorists and thwarted peasants but one with deep roots in the work of thinkers who devised a view of life that was neither modern nor antimodern, neither colonialist nor anticolonialist. In broad, deep, dramatic chapters, Mishra tells the stories of these figures, unpacks their philosophies, and reveals their shared goal of a greater Asia.
Right now, when the emergence of a greater Asia seems possible as at no previous time in history, From The Ruins Of Empire is as necessary as it is timely—a book essential to our understanding of the world and our place in it.
Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities
Peter Fox-Penner - 2010
This and other developments will prompt utilities to undergo the largest changes in their history. Smart Power examines the many facets of this unprecedented transformation. This enlightening book begins with a look back on the deregulatory efforts of the 1990s and their gradual replacement by concerns over climate change, promoting new technologies, and developing stable prices and supplies. In thorough but non-technical terms it explains the revolutionary changes that the Smart Grid is bringing to utility operations. It also examines the options for low-carbon emissions along with the real-world challenges the industry and its regulators must face as the industry retools and finances its new sources and systems. Throughout the book, Peter Fox-Penner provides insights into the policy choices and regulatory reform needed to face these challenges. He not only weighs the costs and benefits of every option, but presents interviews with informed experts, including economists, utility CEOs, and engineers. He gives a brief history of the development of the current utility business model and examines possible new business models that are focused on energy efficiency.Smart Power explains every aspect of the coming energy revolution for utilities in lively prose that will captivate even the most techno-phobic readers.
The Culture Struggle
Michael Parenti - 2006
Drawing from cultures around the world, Parenti shows that beliefs and practices are readily subjected to political manipulation, and that many parts of culture are being commodified, separated from their group or communal origins, to be packaged and sold to those who can pay for them. Folk culture is giving way to a corporate market culture. Art, science, medicine, and psychiatry can be used as instruments of cultural control, and even marriage, the "foundation of society," has been misused by heterosexuals across the centuries.Using vivid examples and riveting arguments throughout, ranging from the everyday to the esoteric, and penned with eloquence and irony, The Culture Struggle presents a collection of snapshots of our time.