Weizman traces the development of these ideas, from the influence of archaeology on urban planning, Ariel Sharon’s reconceptualization of military defense during the 1973 war, through the planning and architecture of the settlements, to contemporary Israeli discourse and practice of urban warfare and airborne targeted assassinations.In exploring Israel’s methods to transform the landscape and the built environment themselves into tools of domination and control, Hollow Land lays bare the political system at the heart of this complex and terrifying project of late-modern colonial occupation.

    Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. Real estate is now a $217 trillion dollar industry, worth thirty-six times the value of all the gold ever mined. It forms sixty percent of global assets, and one of the most powerful people in the world—the president of the United States—made his name as a landlord and developer.Samuel Stein shows that this explosive transformation of urban life and politics has been driven not only by the tastes of wealthy newcomers, but by the state-led process of urban planning. Planning agencies provide a unique window into the ways the state uses and is used by capital, and the means by which urban renovations are translated into rising real estate values and rising rents.Capital City explains the role of planners in the real estate state, as well as the remarkable power of planning to reclaim urban life.

    Why do some places--the concourse of Grand Central Terminal or a small farm or even the corner of a skyscraper--affect us so mysteriously and yet so forcefully? What tiny changes in our everyday environments can radically alter the quality of our daily lives? The Experience of Place offers an innovative and delightfully readable proposal for new ways of planning, building, and managing our most immediate and overlooked surroundings.

    An urban historian and architect, she portrays housewives and politicians as well as designers and builders making the decisions that have generated America’s diverse suburbs. Residents have sought home, nature, and community in suburbia. Developers have cherished different dreams, seeking profit from economies of scale and increased suburban densities, while lobbying local and federal government to reduce the risk of real estate speculation. Encompassing environmental controversies as well as the complexities of race, gender, and class, Hayden’s fascinating account will forever alter how we think about the communities we build and inhabit.

    A Checker taxicab and a conductor’s baton. An oyster and a mastodon tusk. Inspired by A History of the World in 100 Objects, The New York Times’ Sam Roberts chose fifty objects that embody the narrative of New York for a feature article in the paper. Many more suggestions came from readers, and so Roberts has expanded the list to 101. Here are just a few of what this keepsake volume offers: · The Flushing Remonstrance, a 1657 petition for religious freedom that was a precursor to the First Amendment to the Constitution.· Beads from the African Burial Ground, 1700s. Slavery was legal in New York until 1827, although many free blacks lived in the city. The African Burial Ground closed in 1792 and was only recently rediscovered.· The bagel, early 1900s. The quintessential and undisputed New York food (excepting perhaps the pizza).· The Automat vending machine, 1912. Put a nickel in the slot and get a cup of coffee or a piece of pie. It was the early twentieth century version of fast food.· The “I Love NY” logo designed by Milton Glaser in 1977 for a campaign to increase tourism. Along with Saul Steinberg’s famous New Yorker cover depicting a New Yorker’s view of the world, it was perhaps the most famous and most frequently reproduced graphic symbol of the time.Unique, sometimes whimsical, always important, A History of New York in 101 Objects is a beautiful chronicle of the remarkable history of the Big Apple that will enrich your mind and rekindle memories.

    A critical history of planning in theory and practice in the twentieth century, as well as of the social and economic problems and opportunities that gave rise to it Trenchant, perceptive, global in coverage, this book is an unrivalled account of its crucial subject Comprehensively revised to take account of abundant new literature published since its original appearance, and to view the 1990s in historical perspective Reviews the development of the modern planning movement over the entire span of the twentieth century

    The perception of public transportation in America is often unflattering—a squalid last resort for those with one too many drunk-driving charges, too poor to afford insurance, or too decrepit to get behind the wheel of a car. Indeed, a century of auto-centric culture and city planning has left most of the country with public transportation that is underfunded, ill maintained, and ill conceived. But as the demand for petroleum is fast outpacing the world's supply, a revolution in transportation is under way. Grescoe explores the ascendance of the straphangers—the growing number of people who rely on public transportation to go about the business of their daily lives. On a journey that takes him around the world—from New York to Moscow, Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Bogotá, Phoenix, Portland, Vancouver, and Philadelphia—Grescoe profiles public transportation here and abroad, highlighting the people and ideas that may help undo the damage that car-centric planning has done to our cities and create convenient, affordable, and sustainable urban transportation—and better city living—for all.

    

    The Atomic Outhouse, Hot Extractions, Listening Out, and Best Vacation Ever, will have you enthralled. These stories and sixty more like them pull no punches to give you a genuine understanding of a war that was more bizarre than you ever imagined.

    Is the emperor alive? Or is his death being kept a closely-guarded secret? It’s impossible to know for certain, since the spies and agents of the kingdom trade in misinformation and half-truths, and only heighten the tension between the brothers.In this atmosphere of palace intrigue and chicanery—as Murad acquires a reputation for overindulgence, Dara for sensitivity, and Shuja for impulsiveness—the stage seems set for a power-hungry Aurangzeb to make his ascent as emperor. However, will Aurangzeb’s quest for domination become his ultimate undoing? The Mughal High Noon, with master brushstrokes, explores questions of power, faith and contentment.

    The old sailors, who could remember her past, said that she was jinxed and ought never sail again. But in the last days of 1940, as the phoney war drew to an end, Britain needed every ship she could lay her hands on, to challenge the might of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. So it was that Lieutenant-Commander John Lamb found himself commanding the old destroyer Rose, with a crew of misfits and troublemakers, and set sail across the dark and icy seas in a desperate race to prevent the German invasion of Norway.... Duncan Harding is a pseudonym for Charles Whiting (1926-2007), who also wrote as Leo Kessler and John Kerrigan. Charles Whiting volunteered for the Army aged 16 in 1943, where he saw active service in Belgium, Holland and Germany with the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment. He has over 350 books to his credit, encompassing military history, espionage, biography and action fiction and holds the Sir George Dowty Prize for Literature.

    The two sisters have their own secrets, hiding difficult childhoods yet still maintaining an air of superiority and righteousness with those around them. Living with them is their brother, Saville, an adult but with the mind of a seven year old. The little girl’s arrival soon turns their world upside down. Great plans are laid for their good-looking, headstrong niece. Harris is going to marry well. Everything changes when World War Two breaks out. Harris falls in love with a man who only has his own interests at heart. She scandalises and disgraces her family with her obsessive behaviour, making herself a laughing stock in the close-knit town. But Harris is not to be put down. She begins to build a successful business with the support of her aunts and her close friend, Bonny. She eventually meets and agrees to marry the respectable local solicitor to the happiness of her aunts, but at the altar, she hears her lost love enter the church…. And once again, she shows her true colours. When tragedy strikes, Harris fights to regain respectability in the eyes of those who care for her but has Harris learned any lessons from her obsessive past…?

     On a steamy August day in 1953, Rick Snedeker, then just three years old, stepped off an Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco) company airliner with his family into a life as different from what they left behind as sandpaper is to silk. It was to prove fabulously exotic and at the same time just like “home” in many ways. In his charming memoir — 3,001 Arabian Days: Growing up in an American Oil Camp in Saudi Arabia (1953-1962) — author Snedeker describes via a series of vignettes his fond and strange remembrances of living for nearly a decade in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Aramco, then the fledgling national oil company, was in those years run by several American oil giants including Standard Oil, and was hastily hiring American experts to develop the far-flung Saudi oil fields. To ease life for the new residents, Aramco built comfortable communities, some aspects of which were reminiscent of how families lived in the States. While a child, Snedeker considered the camels, endless sand dunes and kindly Saudis that filled his childhood in the desert as nothing unusual. Kids enjoyed the live Nativity pageants at King’s Road baseball field; Santa’s arrival on a camel or by helicopter at Christmas; the crowded, boisterous annual tri-camp desert fairs; Pep Flakes cereal, powdered whole milk, and chocolate milkshakes churned in his dad’s new-fangled Waring blender; the Dining Hall’s culinary delights. Then, too, Aramcons occasionally had to confront dangerous diseases, some unknown in America (polio, for example, ravaged Dhahran children in the fifties). But everywhere, watchful eyes looked out for the kids, creating an enveloping sense of safety and security and, Snedeker recalls, a great deal of happiness. Aramco provided generous biannual “long vacations,” allowing round-the-world travel to visit the planet’s most glittering metropolises, unusual getaways and remote hideaways. London. Hong Kong. Zurich. Honolulu. Asmara. Bangkok. Venice. Hofuf. Bahrain. New York City. Being raised in the unique, exotic environment of oil-camp Dhahran made the kids who grew up there different from other American children. When the expatriate Aramco dependents returned to the U.S., they were often seen as “other” by their untraveled peers. But it all turned out fine, as the entertaining read of 3,001 Arabian Days makes clear.

    One of the players, Lieutenant Colonel Sir William Gordon-Cumming Bt, Scots Guards, is accused of cheating. A classic Victorian melodrama: vast amounts of money, illegal gambling, the Royal Family, mistresses, bed-hopping, cover-up, deception and blackmail. The saga ranges from the wind-swept remoteness of Gordonstoun in Scotland, big game hunting in Africa and India, to life in the Guards in London and action in the Zulu Wars and Egyptian Campaign of 1882. For the first time, the Gordon-Cumming family papers are brought to light, including many of Sir William’s diaries and letters, as well as letters from The Royal Archives at Windsor Castle that detail the anxieties amongst the Royal Family. Previously undiscovered, there are more than mere coincidental connections between Gordon-Cumming and the Intelligence community. What was he really up to and why didn’t the Prince, his close confidant and friend, bail him out? Views of present-day descendants of those involved are also revealed for the first time. Was Gordon-Cumming a cheat or not? Or was he the scapegoat for something which is shrouded in even more mystery?

    The author witnessed the mud-soaked agony of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and the rapidly moving events of the following year. The book contains one of the most extraordinary accounts of the German spring offensive in 1918, from the point of view of a gunner officer with a grandstand view of the ruthless German advance.The author's father was Prime Minister at the outbreak of the first world war. The author's three brothers also served during the war; his eldest brother died during the Battle of the Somme.