Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape

Book Description

The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots.

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

Customer Reviews:

luddite indictment of a car .......2007-05-22

The book is well written and provides a lot of facts, though many of these may be known anyhow. However, the author's pet idea - that the car is THE reason for aberrations in suburban development - begins to be more and more irritating as we read on; there is one large chapter devoted to the car and road planning, but if this were not enough the point gets reiterated every few paragraphs. Perhaps indeed the car is the ultimate evil of modern civilization; if only we didn't have to reread this again and again.
As a form of compensation, we get very limited look at the social, economic and demographic causes of all landscape changes during past century. Yes, there is a mention of some historical events, such as WWII, but it disappears under the weight of all those cars blamed for commercial strips, parking lots and suburban housing. Somehow, the population growth, which the strips, suburbs, parking lots and cars try to accomodate, gets overlooked. But then, we get also a healthy dose of nostagia after the goode olde times, when towns were small, kids could play in the streets without a risk of traffic accident, and farms were the base of economy. I could not escape the impression that the author's leading motive was to lament the lifestyles gone.

A Worthy Rant.......2007-02-08

This is book is largely a rant--well-researched and eloquent--but a rant nonetheless. Overwrought with cynicism, it is hard to distinguish Kunstler's reasonable concerns from his own sense of nostalgia. He draws some erroneous parallels (e.g. holding Disney World to the standard of anything but an amusement park) but does make an effective point regarding how U.S. citizens were ill-prepared for the after effects of the heyday of the automobile.

Fundamentally, Kunstler's cynicism aside, he's an advocate for renewed interest in civic planning, decreased dependency on fossil fuels, and models of sustainability. He presents Portland, OR as the best model for a city and the community of Seaside, FL as the model for a smaller town. He sees urban planning as the opportunity to develop while respecting the present landscape and enriching sense of community and public space.

The weakness of the book lies in the author's bitterness, which disguises his very real passion for the topic. The saving grace is that given most of his likely readership, he is preaching to the choir who understands his anger. This choir will understand that Kunstler embeds important lessons in his bleak diatribe--lessons worth embracing.

Kunstler's Gift of Entertaining While Informing.......2006-11-29

I have little more to add to the many thorough reviews already posted, so I'll just note what grabbed me: it was the rare book that was fun to read, even while dealing with serious societal problems in a thoughtful manner. A great introduction to community development issues.

highway to hell.......2006-02-01

Last night in his State of the Union speech, G. W. Bush pointed out the obvious fact that America depends far too heavily on oil to support its lifestyle. Whoever programmed him to say that must have been reacting to the mounting unrest over the crises associated with big oil: war, pollution, corruption, and extreme flabbiness.

Most of the problems associated with oil are problems associated with cars, and cars are the focus of J. H. Kunstler's book. Published in the early 90s, The Geography of Nowhere describes the impact of automobiles on the development of the U.S. Apparently, things started to go south during the Depression, when people were driven out of cities by poverty and the diminishing quality of life in the tenements. Fueling the flight to the suburbs were New Deal programs to build roads and cheap houses. In the ensuing decades the American landscape was built to serve cars rather than people, and that is what Kunstler is angry about. His main criticisms are:

1) A lot of the architecture, both residential and commerical, is very ugly. Buildings are constructed quickly and cheaply, and without regard to their surroundings. After all, what's the point of worrying about your surroundings if people are just going to drive directly to their destination? On this point, Kunstler is angry and sarcastic, though often funny. However, his tone is unfortunate, because ugliness is ultimately a matter of opinion, and I would bet that most people would say they are quite happy living in their suburban boxes. Kunstler argues that people are happy this way because they don't know any better, and he's probably right, but as far as I know there is no good way to force people to appreciate beauty.

2) When you step back from the individual buildings, and look at the organization of towns and cities, things start to look really grim. Here Kunstler's got a good point. Throughout most of America, the landscape is zoned into residential and commercial districts, which are separated by long stretches of four-lane roads. The residential zones are further divided by income (and to a lesser extent, by race and ethnicity), impeding the development of anything like a genuine community. The result is a weird mix of intolerance and paranoia that pervades the culture of what has historically been a relatively progressive nation.

3) At an even larger scale, the impact of cars on the nation and on the world seems absolutely dire. The Geography of Nowhere was written before car companies had figured out how to trick yuppies into buying pick-up trucks, and by now there is a broad scientific consensus that the Earth's climate is getting warmer as a result of human activities. Yet people continue to buy bigger and bigger SUVs, and to drive them longer distances to get to work or to buy their microwaveable burritos. It's like a hideous inversion of the idea of public transportation, in which every individual drives his or her own bus to work. Here it's not merely a matter of personal preference -- it's only possible for an individual to drive an SUV if other people subsidize the cost of cheap oil and environmental degradation. In all likelihood these other people haven't been born yet.

Ultimately, someone has to make decisions about the development of towns and cities, and there's no reason in a democratic society why these decisions have to be based on short-term economic interests. Although most suburbanites are probably not miserable in their surroundings, I doubt if anyone would consider their dependence on cars to be ideal. The Geography of Nowhere is a good way to start thinking about kicking the habit.

The Rise and Decline of Humanity.......2006-01-01

I believe that many of the ways we view our lives and live it is directly related to the relation of space, especially where our homes are and what we do daily.

Kunstler points out very cunningly and sometimes with anger how horrible America has set up its cities - cities of which I usually refer to as 'Suburbia World' and America, for a large part, really has turned into a world of suburbia, of endless homes stacked next to each other in a large sea, of which all its inhabitants commute to a Office park some 30 miles away.

Anyway, although Kunstler does not cover as in-depth as I believe he should, he points out many architectural and planning elements that even I, as an architecture student in Los Angeles, have never truly observed. He so well argues against suburban development that I am, even more than before, inspired to work on architectural projects that have nothing to do with suburban qualities (although this shall be very difficult).

If you are looking for a book to explain how horrible our cities really are (especially in the suburban world) and have never had the vocabulary to express that please read this book, it is something I wish everyone could understand and react to.

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author

Average customer rating:

best characterization of the geopolitical framework of the Post-Cold War era
Power where does it all stem from...
Good book on resource geopolitics. My 13 yo son loves it
Needs a 2nd edition
balanced and dispassionate analysis

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author
Michael T. Klare
Manufacturer: Holt Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books

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Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum
The Party's Over: Oil, War And The Fate Of Industrial Societies
The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World
PowerDown: Options And Actions For A Post-Carbon World
Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak

ASIN: 0805055762

Book Description

From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia, Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations. International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on.A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.

Customer Reviews:

best characterization of the geopolitical framework of the Post-Cold War era .......2006-11-19

copyright 2006 Kat W.

In Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict Michael Klare argues that the post-Cold War era can be best explained by a perspective that focuses on the "global demand for" what he calls "key materials." These materials include but are not limited to water, oil, old-growth timber, uranium, copper, rutile, bauxite, diamonds, gold, other minerals, gems and the global atmosphere. Klare's concept of what Thomas Friedman would call `The One Big Thing' readily explains the major global conflicts in the post-War era. Klare concedes, however, that his conception of dynamic global order, as it is informed by disputes over resources "may not be " The One Big Thing" that lies at the heart of all international relations, [but] it helps explain much of what is happening in the world today" (14).

Klare's perspective is a useful and accurate one. I think that Klare's text stands above Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree, Sam Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, and Stigliz's Globalization and its Discontents. Klare gives the most parsimonious description of the current geopolitical climate. His characterization of conflicts as "resource Wars" is adaptable enough to be a useful paradigm for the next 40-60 years, perhaps longer if technology creates viable renewable forms of energy. This is because Klare's resource-based view of the global political climate is founded on the undeniable fact that as the world population soars and industrialization spreads; vital, finite resources will continue to diminish rapidly. Two hundred and fifty years of heavy industrialization in Europe and the United States has taken a toll on the world's resources. As India and China look to reap the benefits of a fully industrialized economy, resource allocation will play a priority role in the geopolitical climate of the coming decades.

American Capitalism was able to provide benefits and commodities that Soviet Communism failed to deliver. It was able to avoid the shortages that befell the Soviet Union. The fall of Communism in the Soviet Union was marked in economic terms more than in ideological terms. Klare usurps the view of Christopher Warren who claimed that "economic competition is eclipsing ideological rivalry"(8).

Currently, Nations perceive economic strength as a vital part of National security. Nations believe a strong economy is necessary for political influence in the world. Klare explains, " the adoption of an econocentric security policy almost always leads to an increased emphasis on resource protection" (14). A thriving economy is necessary for strong national security and open access to vital resources is a necessary component for a strong economy. Klare makes a compelling connection between national security, economic growth, and strategic military operations. In the post Cold-War era there is a shift from the "weapons technology and alliance politics [that] once dominated the discourse on military affairs, American strategy now focuses on oil-field protection, the defense of maritime trade routes, and other aspects of resource security" (6).

We see that documents of official U.S. foreign policy target resource-rich regions such as the Persian Gulf. When asked why the United States invaded Iraq instead of North Korea Donald Rumsfeld responded that the country swims on a sea of oil. Where Huntington sees clashes of civilizations as the main challenge to peace in the world, Klare sees "intensified resource competition" pushed by private and state interests as the main purveyors of global conflict in the current era. We see that the United States is all-too-often able to avert its watchful eyes from humanitarian atrocities as long as those atrocities don't hurt U.S. business' access to "vital raw materials." The United States allies itself with "three Muslim states -Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan -against two prominently Christian ones, Armenia and Russia" The Reason? : to have a claim to the Caspian Sea basin's impressively rich reserves of petroleum and natural gas(Klare 12-13). The strategic desire to acquire high-demand resources becomes more important than playing along civilizational lines. Klare's Resource-based perspective on international and domestic conflicts speaks to me in a compelling way for several reasons.
1) I am an environmentalist and I am well versed in the stubborn attitudes that certain senators (ex. =Voinovich from Ohio!) have toward diminishing U.S. economic output (measured in G.N.P) by limiting the use of finite fossil fuel resources. The U.S. senate regularly fails to pass climate change initiatives aimed at CO2 reductions because they believe investment in non-CO2 producing technology and subsequent shifts away from a coal-based economy will lead to a net loss of jobs and a drop in GNP. Klare does a nice job of connecting resource acquisition with the economy. He then relates the economy to national security, which informs political and especially military policy.
2) I am an atheist. I think this predisposes me to be more receptive to Klare's claims about the geopolitical climate of the post Cold War world, and less receptive to Sam Huntington's strongly argued and conceived civilizational division of global regions of power. Religion seems to be ( as Huntington explains) the heart of civilization. Klare is able to bring conflicts into focus with specific regional resources at the center when ostensibly these outbreaks of violence appeared to be results of ethnic or religious clashes and nothing else. Klare takes time to address conflicts (such as water wars between Israel and Palestine) that at first appear to be civilizational. He successfully convinces the reader that at its core the conflict is because of a dispute over resources.
3) I read the forementioned books with the U.S. occupation of Iraq in the forefront of my thought. Klare actually makes a cameo appearance in Hijacking Catastrophe, a movie that explains some of the ways that Bush's " War on terror" (which I believe to be a misnomer in the first place! - I think Wars are against nation states not decentralized, non-state actors) is not about preventing the spread of terrorist cells and "Islamo-Facism" but instead the war is about securing vital oil resources of the Persian Gulf region. The Plan for the New American century literally said that Persian gulf oil would be of vital interest to U.S. and that the U.S. should be prepared to act unilaterally to gain control or influence over the use of this oil. My previous exposure to the role that resources play in U.S. foreign policy made me very open to the core thesis of Klare's book.
4) I don't know very much about Islam in general, and my exposure (a few days a week for 14 years) to Christianity in America left me uninspired. Klare's discussion of the politics on the Arabian peninsula speak to me where perhaps, if I knew more about the region I might find Huntington's civilizational, demographic, and core state/ cleft state/ torn state perspective more compelling.
5) My interest in global politics is based in my desire to create a more egalitarian society in the United States and to spread the riches of industrialization to the poorest people in underdeveloped countries. With this purpose I see resource re-allocation as a way to pull some underdeveloped countries into the class of those who have what they need to survive comfortably. "The United States alone consumes approximately 30 percent of all raw materials used by the human population" (Klare 13). Each human requires a minimum of " approximately 1,000 cubic meters (265,000 gallons) per" year and there is currently enough for every person if the water is shared equitably (Klare 142-144). Klare's statistical data is a very useful tool that can be used to the meet the end of securing nutritional necessities for humans living in countries without infrastructure or exploitable assets (that could be used to get them out of poverty). Klare's thesis leads to a conclusion where he argues that the best outcome for the human population would be to manage and control resources in a peaceful way, under the regulation of a "global authority." He believes this, coupled with a concerted effort among nations to develop technological revolutions could help solve resource crises. Klare is weak on policy suggestions (it seems like less than 10 pages of the book is policy recommendations) but his `One World' unificationist ending is much more satisfying, hopeful, and accurate than strong challengers' ultimate conclusions about the strife-ridden, perpetually divided future of the world.

Religion haunts the text of Klare's Resource Wars. Interspersed between strong arguments for his resource-based perspective on Global politics Klare makes concessions to the popular conservative, Samuel Huntington. These concessions do not de-value the central thesis of the book, however. He does not attack a straw man's version of Huntington's, Friedman's and others' characterizations of the geopolitical climate. Instead, he critically engages these popular frameworks that are in opposition to the main trend he lays out. In terms of politics and conflict in the Middle East Klare admits," Even before the discovery of oil, the states in this region were torn by internal divisions along ethnic and political lines, and by historic rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. ... This fiery cauldron has been further heated in recent years by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the endurance of authoritarian regimes, and deep frustrations (among many Arabs) over Israel's treatment of the Palestinians" (45).
However, at the same time, Huntington is unable to preach along civilizational lines without giving some mention of the fact that Saudi Arabia is both the "original home of Islam" and the land with "the world's largest oil reserves" (Huntington 178). Similarly Iraq is both the land of Babylon and the land with an estimated 112.5 billion barrels of oil, the second greatest oil reserves in the world (Klare 45). Lands of great religious significance are the same lands under which vital resources sit ready to be fought over. Conflicts in the Middle East must be approached with some previous knowledge of cultural, ethnic, historical and religious lines drawn between groups of people, but the significance of middle eastern conflicts and their primary significance all around the world lies in the fact that the region sits on top of resources that the rest of the world wants access to.

If I were to rewrite Klare's book I would change very little. I would expand on the policy implications that can be extracted from the paradigm that Klare lays out. I would probably offer stronger critiques of the United States' claims to unfair portions of global resources. I think Klare strikes the balance between the influence resources exert over global politics and the influence that culture and civilization exert over global politics. If I were Klare I would have gone one step further and in rewriting the book I would address Global climate change as it is related to the acquisition of fossil fuel resources. In addition, treaties such Kyoto would be areas of global politics that I would examine. I believe that issues having to do with the global warming will become very important in the coming decades. Densely populated regions face loss of coastal land and this means that there will be mass migrations of peoples. An environmentalist spin on Klare's Resource Wars may move a bit toward Friedman's claims that Green energy industry will be a prime money-making market of the new century.

Ultimately I believe that Klare's lens gives the least distorted view of international relations as they exist and operate in today's world. It is not what Huntington's followers may belittle as "vacuous" "western universalism" that pushes Klare to plead for resource allocations to be parsed out by transnational organizations (or "global authorities") ; it is the universalism of the basic rights and physical needs of the body that are common among all human beings. This is something that can be understood without religion, without culture (Huntington's definition) and without nationality.

Power where does it all stem from..........2006-11-03

This is a good book and it really opens your eyes to all the bickering that occures over the use of resources.. When you think of resources a lot of people think of hard material items such as gold or oil as scarce but even the most basic element water is faught over on a day-to-day basis in rugged territories and contested borders. How many people know that Roosevelt had a meeting with King Abdel-Aziz in 1945 and the bearing it had on US Saudi relations to date? How many people know about France's ties with Saddaam Hussein before the 90's? How about the divide between the rich and the poor refered to as globalization?

Good book on resource geopolitics. My 13 yo son loves it.......2006-10-09

We all knew that respources, like money, move the world. And that by explaining the concentration, consumption and need to control them, everything we see in geopolitics can be somehow explained.

What is also amaizing, is that this book is written in a way that my pre-teen son (13) was so inetrested that he read it with calm and eagerness, so you know that the style is not dry or uniteresting. Try it with your kids or those teens you are close to.

It woud be good to have a update, specially now that the venezuelan oil supply is in control of an american hating militaristic madman with pretention of waging a war against the "empire".

Needs a 2nd edition.......2006-02-12

This is a decent book. It is well researched and referenced, and it contains a lot of interesting information about foriegn policy with respect to resources (especially oil and water). Klare remains rather nuetral throughout, which is rather refreshing. Unfortunately, it is a little dated by now (written when the Taliban still controled Afganistan and before the Iraq war). Most of the US foreign policy dates back to the Clinton era.

The problem is that the book is not very well written. There aren't mistakes, it is grammatically correct, etc., but painfully dry. In place of indepth anaylsis, I felt like a lot of pages were devoted to term-paper type intros and conclusions, with really obvious and vague statements. These statements seems to be repeated ad nausem. At times the book fell from my hands. I almost gave up on the book after wading though the painfully long intro and half the first chapter. I finally just skimmed ahead to chapter 3. The first 50 pages do nothing more than to say basically "oil is important and most of it is in politically unstable areas."

It is unfortunate, because it is an important book, and there is a lot of good info burried in it. It could just be about half as long.

balanced and dispassionate analysis.......2005-11-17

Thirty or forty years in the future, people will look back at Resource Wars by Michael Klare as one of those books they wished they had read, or as one that policymakers should have read.

Klare takes a serious look at the types of potential conflicts that will emerge as a result of increasing population and decreasing natural resouces. Many would cover oil exlusively (and Klare has written on oil alone), but this book was refreshing because it also looked at resources such as lumber, and water. The book covers a wide range of topics in a very practical, matter-of-fact fashion. This is not a polemical book and that is refreshing.

Resource Wars could almost be compared to Huntington's Clash of Civilizations in the way that each author is making a prediction about future conflicts. While Huntington's thesis is interesting, Klare's seems more likely.

Highly recommended.

Mandated Landscape: British Imperial Rule in Palestine 1929-1948

Average customer rating:

A nice study

Mandated Landscape: British Imperial Rule in Palestine 1929-1948
Roza El-Eini
Manufacturer: Frank Cass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Urban Planning & Development | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0714654264

Book Description

This work examines the construction of post-Soviet political space, geopolitical discourses and boundaries in Estonia. Making use of innovative methodological solutions such as Q-methodology, its analysis includes in-depth interviews in order to elucidate a variety of issues through human experience and subjective perception, such as Estonian-Russian border disputes of the 1990s, inter-ethnic issues and national integration and security.
As Estonia is one of the frontline EU accession countries and is queuing for membership of NATO, the book raises broad questions of post-Soviet geopolitics in the Baltic region and across Europe. Indeed, the book argues that small states such as Estonia should be understood as active participants in post-Soviet and European geopolitics, and not simply pawns in a superpower environment.

Customer Reviews:

A nice study.......2007-03-17

This is a compact and important study of all the aspects of landscape during the Palestine Mandate(1917-1948). It covers agriculture, Land laws, forestry, the land system, the partition plans and there is a special case study of the Shephalah, the Palestine Piedmont area on the Coastal plain. An important contribution to the field of study of Palestine in the 20th century, an excellent and interesting view of the Mandate, one that seperates politics from reality, a welcomed addition therefore to reading on Palestine and the land that became Israel.

Seth J. Frantzman

Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America

Average customer rating:

Great Read
Surveying human needs, design challenges, and social issues alike.
top drawer quality

Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America
Alan Berger
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Landscape Urbanism Reader
Reclaiming the American West
Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture
Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design and City Theory
Praxis, Journal of Writing and Building, Issue 4: Landscape

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The Landscape Urbanism Reader
Town Spaces: Contemporary Interpretations in Traditional Urbanism
Light Zone City: Light Planning in the Urban Context

ASIN: 156898572X

Book Description

Do you really know what is under that new house you just bought? How about what lies beneath the neighborhood playground? Was that “big box” retailer down your street built over a toxic site? These are just a few of the worrisome scenarios facing us all as our cities begin to redevelop old toxic waste sites — places Alan Berger has coined “drosscapes.” Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America is your guide to this vast, hitherto largely ignored field of waste landscapes.

Landscape architects must learn to accommodate these wastelands along with the more traditional challenges of site and construction. This will require a radical reconceptualization of thinking about landscape before potential solutions can be effectively addressed or devised. Ten cites are examined both visually and analytically through the use of aerial photography and geospatially derived maps, charts, and graphs.

Customer Reviews:

Great Read.......2007-09-26

This book is a natural extension of the direction Alan Berger took in his first book Reclaiming the American West. While in his first book he examined the "leftover" space, of human industrial development in the American West in his new book he examines the range of wasted spaces which are created by current urban development patterns. Although specifically about the American urban landscape, his work can be at least loosely applied anywhere where sprawl or horizontal urbanity has become the norm. A key aim of his book is to go beyond the partisan debate of pro-or anti sprawl activists. Instead, Berger sets out to initiate a conversation and to develop a vocabulary through which this phenomenon of "inevitable" horizontal development can be understood and critiqued. However, this is arguably one weakness of the book. Although he develops a wonderful analysis of the phenomenon, his acceptance of it's inevitably, especially in the face of the efforts of many to change the game, can come off as defeatist. Yet, his focus on the liminal nature of the typologies he outlines does open up many fascinating areas of discussion. For inspiration he draws on everything from William Gibson's Neuromancer to Lars Lerups' concept of Stim & Dross. Ultimately, his approach is hopeful though. He concludes that because of the large scale nature of the problem, any solution must draw on abilities and knowledge of all the design disciplines from landscape architecture to urban planning. Berger suggests a paradigm shift, asking "designers to consider working in the margins rather than at the center."

Surveying human needs, design challenges, and social issues alike........2006-10-15

DROSSCAPE: WASTING LAND IN URBAN AMERICA is a top pick not just for architects and building designers, but for any homeowners or buyer who would understand waste landscapes and how they are handled. Landscape architects must learn to accommodate them - and homeowners need to learn about them. DROSSCAPE is for both, offering a radical new method of thinking about landscape and its problems. Ten cities are analyzed through aerial photography, maps and charts with an eye to surveying human needs, design challenges, and social issues alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

top drawer quality.......2006-05-26

If Dolores Hayden's recent exploration of suburban geography in "A Field Guide to Sprawl" defined a genre of 'naming and photographing' the oddness of the emerging American hinterland of strip malls, powercenters and waste space, Drosscape is its first major, major contribution. This thing is stunning.

The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

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Learn urban history to avoid repeating it
Best Book Available on LA City Planning
Fulton's Folly
The joke in Los Angeles
So that's how it really is...

The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles
William Fulton
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir
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ASIN: 0801865069

Book Description

In twelve engaging essays, William Fulton chronicles the history of urban planning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, tracing the legacy of short-sighted political and financial gains that has resulted in a vast urban region on the brink of disaster. Looking at such diverse topics as shady real estate speculations, the construction of the Los Angeles subway, the battle over the future of South Central L.A. after the 1992 riots, and the emergence of Las Vegas as "the new Los Angeles," Fulton offers a fresh perspective on the city's epic sprawl. The only way to reverse the historical trends that have made Los Angeles increasingly unliveable, Fulton concludes, is to confront the prevailing "cocoon citizenship," the mind-set that prevents the city's inhabitants and leaders from recognizing Los Angeles's patchwork of communities as a single metropolis.

Customer Reviews:

Learn urban history to avoid repeating it.......2007-03-08

Fulton is an expert on the history and political processes underlying the growth of Southern California over the last century, and he lays out how many of these same political ideologies and schools of urban thought have fundamentally malformed Los Angeles, as well as many other American cities, in The Reluctant Metropolis. Most elements pertinent to SoCal's development - the water supply, the creation of an idealized suburbia a la 1950's and its appeal to Midwesterners, the streetcars (and later veritable inundation with automobiles and freeways), and much more - all of the proccesses that created a paradox, with Los Angeles being the only top-tier, alpha-level global city that fundamentally rejects every single element of traditional "urbanity." But this is not a story unique to LA, and it is precisely because many other booming American cities risk suffering the same fate that this book is highly important reading for all interested in the future of the USA's urban centers.

Best Book Available on LA City Planning.......2007-03-08

Read this book! It is the best book I've read on development and growth in the LA basin. It's very well-written and incorporates both political and professional planning vantage points. Describes very succinctly the interplay between water, developers, and municipal leaders over the past century. Don't believe the whiner who rated this at two stars: he's a disgruntled slow-growther who has a personal bone to pick. Fulton captures the essence of Los Angeles without necessarily endorsing or advocating a position.

Fulton's Folly.......2004-06-13

Bill Fulton is often lionized by planning "professionals" and students for his writing in this book but the truth is that his foray into the application reality of his theory has Ventura on the ropes. Fulton is the architect of several local no-growth initiatives such as Save Our Agricultural Resources (SOAR) as well as spearheading a housing development-blocking effort a couple of years ago for Ventura hillsides. What has since happened as any college freshman taking Econ 101 would understand, is that the supply of housing has constricted as demand increased and resulted in the skyrocketing price of local housing. Fulton did nothing after pushing these no-growth initiatives to stoke the fires of development that is required to prevent this housing supply constipation.

Fulton has now gotten himself elected to the Ventura City Council and it has become easy to see his political agenda that before has been hidden and masquerading as thoughtful intellect. This guy is no responsible academic or planning God but merely another no-growth advocate pushing a political agenda. Don't waste your time reading his stuff unless you have nothing else with which to stock your water closet area.

The joke in Los Angeles.......2002-12-03

The joke in Los Angeles is 'I've never been to downtown Los Angeles'. This is book that tells all about the decentralization of LA. Unlike most cities in America, Los Angeles' decentralization is a product of the explained 'growth machine'. One of the most unique cities in America and possibly one of the most depressing. I would have given this book 5 stars but i award 5 stars to inspirational books. The politics of Los Angeles makes me want to curl into a ball and shove myself into a dark corner (no worries though, it's perpetually sunny here).

So that's how it really is..........2002-08-27

This book is a must read for anyone willing to expose themselves to the stories behind the stories of Los Angeles. The stories reveal the apathetic and self-centered nature of some Los Angeles citizens (who will never really admit they are from "Los Angeles"), and sets the stage for an entire change of mindset among Los Angelenos. This mindset is one that takes notice of the community, and the larger metropolis that communities make up. For a graduate city planning student as I, these stories help shape some basic values of mine regarding the nature of cities and communities. I strongly recommend this book.

Landscape Of Hope And Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps (The Ethnography of Political Violence)

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Landscape Of Hope And Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps (The Ethnography of Political Violence)
Julie Marie Peteet
Manufacturer: University of Pennsylvania Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Economic Conditions | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

ASIN: 0812238931

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Great Read for my GIS Intelligence course

THE GEOPOLITICS READER
G. Tuathail
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

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Geopolitics: Re-Visioning World Politics (Frontiers of Human Geography)
Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror, and Political Violence
Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy(3rd Edition)
INTRODUCTION TO GEOPOLOTICS: TENSIONS, CONFLICTS AND RESOLUTIONS
Hegemony: The New Shape Of Global Power

ASIN: 0415341485

Book Description

This extensively revised second edition of The Geopolitics Reader draws together the most important political, geographical, historical and sociological readings of geopolitics in the early twenty first century.

The Reader draws on the most illuminating examples of imperial, Cold War, contemporary geopolitics, new environmental themes, global dangers and multiple resistances to the practices of geopolitics. The editors provide comprehensive introductions and critical comment at the beginning of each of the five parts and political cartoons are integrated throughout. Whilst this compendium of divergent viewpoints of global conflict and change has retained its five part structure, the selection of readings have been updated to account for recent developments in the critical study of geopolitics and the post 9/11 geopolitical landscape.

Including readings by Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel, Osama Bin Laden and George Bush, this invaluable collection of readings introduces fresh perspectives on discourse, power, gender, knowledge and the political economy.

Customer Reviews:

Great Read for my GIS Intelligence course.......2007-09-15

I order this book based on its requirement for my Geo-Spatial Intelligence course through Penn State's online world campus. Great insight on geo-politics and global perspectives.

Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity

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A Great, quick read and a new insight on international terrorism.
Must Read
Fresh and insighful yet convoluted

Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity
Faisal Devji
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

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Terrorism | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Islam | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge Middle East Studies)
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ASIN: 0801444373

Book Description

What are the motives behind Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's jihad against America and the West? Innumerable attempts have been made in recent years to explain that mysterious worldview. In Landscapes of the Jihad, Faisal Devji focuses on the ethical content of this jihad as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda differs radically from such groups as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, which aim to establish fundamentalist Islamic states. In fact, Devji contends, Al-Qaeda, with its decentralized structure and emphasis on moral rather than political action, actually has more in common with multinational corporations, antiglobalization activists, and environmentalist and social justice organizations. Bin Laden and his lieutenants view their cause as a response to the oppressive conditions faced by the Muslim world rather than an Islamist attempt to build states.

Al-Qaeda culls diverse symbols and fragments from Islam's past in order to legitimize its global war against the "metaphysical evil" emanating from the West. The most salient example of this assemblage, Devji argues, is the concept of jihad itself, which Al-Qaeda defines as an "individual duty" incumbent on all Muslims, like prayer. Although medieval Islamic thought provides precedent for this interpretation, Al-Qaeda has deftly separated the stipulation from its institutional moorings and turned jihad into a weapon of spiritual conflict.

Al-Qaeda and its jihad, Devji suggests, are only the most visible manifestations of wider changes in the Muslim world. Such changes include the fragmentation of traditional as well as fundamentalist forms of authority. In the author's view, Al-Qaeda represents a new way of organizing Muslim belief and practice within a global landscape and does not require ideological or institutional unity.

Offering a compelling explanation for the central purpose of Al-Qaeda's jihad against the West, the meaning of its strategies and tactics, and its moral and aesthetic dimensions, Landscapes of the Jihad is at once a sophisticated work of historical and cultural analysis and an invaluable guide to the world's most prominent terrorist movement.

Customer Reviews:

A Great, quick read and a new insight on international terrorism........2007-03-20

This is a pretty good book with a few flaws. It has four main points.

1. Islamic terrorism is done as an ethical end in itself with vague political intentions.

2. Jihadists have failed to change politics in their home countries, so they get the international media's attention with violent attacks, and thus try to project responsibility for these local failures onto foreign (democratic) people that it is their responsibility to address the local political problems the jihadists have failed at.

3. Islamic terrorism is a disorganized movement that spreads organically--new cells are created by small, inspired groups...there is no hierarchy and no dogma...only the belief in suicide bombing against Westerners and secularists as a good deed.

4. Jihadism is historically divorced from other Islamic movements because it scorns the authority of ulama and because the individual terrorists have vastly differing individual beliefs. Its message is, in part, that each Muslim can interpret doctrine his own way, without a Qadi or other official to direct his beliefs.

However, there are a few problems with the book.

1. First of all, 75% of Devji's sources are interviews with bin Laden and al-Zawahiri from 1998, or 2001 interviews. He needs to interview a greater variety of jihadists in order to have a better picture.

2. Second, he completely ignores the situation in Iraq. Since 2003, the number of suicide attacks in Iraq has been vastly greater than those anywhere else in the past 10 years. And I would guess that the majority of those attacks have a specific goal--an Islamic state in Iraq. It's suspicious and statistically ridiculous to overlook Iraq.

All in all, he explains international terrorism well, but not local terrorism in places like Iraq or Palestine--which have specific political aims.

Must Read.......2006-04-13

Since the previous reviewer has done an excellent job summarizing this complex, dazzling, often exhilirating book, I should just say that I was really struck by Devji's writerly gifts that make layered arguments accessible to a lay reader such as myself.

Fresh and insighful yet convoluted.......2006-03-22

How did Islam become a global phenomenon in Al-Qaeda's Jihad? This is the question that Faisal Devji seeks to address in his Landscapes of the Jihad. Devji argues that while violence is certainly the most visible part of Al-Qaeda's jihad, it should be taken into consideration with a "world of ethical, sexual, aesthetic, and other forms of behaviour" (xvi). Devji avoids attempting explaining contemporary Jihad as the result of political or nationalistic motivations. Instead, he argues that while Jihad is indeed meant to accomplish certain ends, it has become more ethical that political in nature. For example, Al-Qaeda, unlike the image portrayed by media in the west, actually has no "coherent vision or plan for the future" (4). Thus, it is absurd to suggest that Al-Qaeda's motivations stem from oppressive or disturbed conditions in the Muslim world. Indeed, most of the fighters in Al-Qaeda are actually privileged and inexperienced middle-class youth, who never had any experience of such conditions, choosing instead to "battle in more exotic locations like Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan" (4).

Devji believes it is high time scholarship began to distinguish global Jihad from local struggles. For Devji, Jihad today has become so globalized that it can be compared to environmental groups, supporters of disarmament, anti-abortion groups, etc. (12). Furthermore, contrary to popular views that all members of Al-Qaeda espouse a single school of Islamic law or thought, Devji shows that there instead exists a kind of pluralism, one that is accepting of "Arabs and non-Arabs, including even the Chinese" (16). Thus, some of the hijackers on September 11 were not averse to consuming alcohol, gambling in Las Vegas, or even attending lap-dances in clubs just a few days before their suicide missions (17). Devji explains such behaviour not as "schizophrenic" or "incongruous," but as "yet another sign of the disintegration of old-fashioned distinctions, whether religious or political, in a universe of global effects that is best represented by the mass media"-a theme that is repeated throughout the book (91). In addition, despite claims made by the popular media, Al-Qaeda has "no formal procedure of recruitment or indoctrination, not even by way of sleepers who supposedly lurk in mosques to trap the unwary martyrs of tomorrow" (20). As a result, the new Jihad is a series of global effects that subverts traditional forms of Islamic devotion.

Devji dismisses Osama Bin Laden's statements about Americans having a "government within the government," as conspiracy theories-something that Osama could have picked up while watching "a television show like the X-Files or a film by Oliver Stone" (6). However, it might be erroneous to dismiss Osama so simply since covert and surreptitious operations by the Americans to overthrow regimes, to cover up "blowbacks" or to support other unsavoury operations have been quite well documented. Furthermore, Devji points out that while most scholarship, and even the media, remains fixated specifically upon Sunni Islam and Middle East, "the most successful examples of political Islam have been revolutionary Iran and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, both [of which are] Shia movements" (21). Similarly, Devji criticizes scholars for not noticing that most Jihad today "happens to be based fore the most part outside the Middle East...among populations that have barely an inkling of Salafi or Wahhabi conditions" (21). The fact that they have Arab fighters or funding from Salafi or Wahhabi groups is not sufficient to convince Devji of the resulting nature of the Jihad there: "That the reverse might be true, with Arab fighters and financiers importing the jihad from these regions to the Middle East, is not seriously considered" (22). Despite these criticisms, Devji provides little convincing evidence to prove otherwise, mentioning insignificant movements such as the Tablighi Jamaat and the fundraising activities of Ayatullah Sistani in Iraq.

Another popular notion that Devji addresses in his work is the idea that Al-Qaeda is a puritan organization, inspired by Salafi and Wahhabi principles, and is therefore vehemently against Sufi or Shia practices. Instead, Devji shows that within Al-Qaeda such genealogies and structures have broken down, and that there exists a synthesis of various practices. For example, certain practices in the Al-Qaeda compare favourably with Sufi or mystical brotherhoods, "even if these happen to be disapproved by members of the movement itself" (42). There are also elements of mysticism that are frequently invoked, as well as Shia practices venerating the Prophet and his family. Devji points that there even is a tradition of the mahdi or messiah, as evidenced by Juhayman al-Utaibi's claim when he captured the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 (48). Devji also explains why Hollywood movies (such as the Long Kiss Goodnight) are accepted as fact against news reports-"simple political intentions no longer suffice to explain events in a global landscape" (89).

The last half of Devji's book draws heavily from letters by Bin Laden, which present him as an erudite and well-informed man, not a radical and misinformed terrorist. For example, Bin Laden clearly explains Islam's right to Palestine based upon the faith's universality while making Muslims true heirs of the Jewish and Christian traditions (85). Indeed, there are even echoes to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in one of Osama's statements. Ultimately, Devji's book offers fresh and new insights towards understanding Jihad today. A sorely needed book, it breaks the vicious cycle of tired and hackneyed arguments that one so often reads in the common media today while providing compelling insight into what is rightly now a global phenomenon.

Case Studies of City-County Consolidation: Reshaping the Local Government Landscape

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Case Studies of City-County Consolidation: Reshaping the Local Government Landscape

Manufacturer: M.E. Sharpe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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City-County Consolidation and Its Alternatives: Reshaping the Local Government Landscape
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ASIN: 0765609436

Landscape with Smokestacks: The Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas

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It's all about interpretation.
Disappointing
Superb insider account of ownership of a Degas artwork

Landscape with Smokestacks: The Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas
Howard J. Trienens , and Scott J. Stone
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Modern | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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At Memory's Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture
The Shawl
A Scrap of Time and Other Stories (Jewish Lives)
Ethics during and after the Holocaust: The Shadow of Birkenau
The Era of the Witness

ASIN: 0810118203

Customer Reviews:

It's all about interpretation........2002-03-19

Truth is found in the details. By logically organizing the paper trail scattered through several countries, written in at least four different languages, and held by a variety of individuals, Trienens establishes the facts of the case. Whether or not readers agree with his interpretation of these facts is another issue. I don't believe anyone withholds their sympathy from the Gutmann family or anyone who suffered from the events of World War II. However, sympathy should not blind readers to the facts of the case, including the 1967 signed statement that upon payment from the German government, the Gutmanns would not pursue any further compensation. While the attention to detail can at times interfere with the narrative, in the end the author sheds light on the complicated process of Nazi-era provenance research and reparation -- and the role of the press in shaping America's ideas about this sensitive issue.

Disappointing.......2001-03-07

When I picked this book up, I thought it was a great find. I read a great deal of non-fiction of this type, and the opening pages were very promising. But I ultimately found it disappointing, even offensive. Trienens sinks the book in legalistic detail, focusing so much on the civil suit that he loses sight of the fascinating larger story. Worse, he seems to regard the Goodmans -- descendants of the owner who died in the Holocaust -- as little more than opportunists, and displays little sympathy or respect for their family's tragedy. And while he claims to be taking an objective view, over and over he interprets facts in a light most favorable to the defendant in the suit -- his client. This book is a badly missed opportunity. I would love to see someone else do it again.

Superb insider account of ownership of a Degas artwork.......2000-11-21

"Landscape with Smokestacks" is a beautiful "monotype" created by Edgar Degas around 1890 and currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. Degas smeared oil colors on a metal plate in large diagonal strokes with a rag, then placed a paper on the plate and used a press to transfer the image to the paper. As Degas described it, "The result is a picture on paper more luminous than if the artist had worked directly on the paper." He used fingerprints for texture at the horizon of the scene, and then dabbed on pastel colors in little dots of yellow or pink. Green striations of monotype ink were matched with green pastel. Prussian blue pastel was smeared into the sky to suggest smoke coming from the nearly eradicated monotype chimney.

The family that owned the work of art perished in the holocaust. They had sent the art to a dealer in Paris, either for safekeeping or on consignment to be sold. If it was sent for safekeeping, it may have been stolen by the Nazis (especially Goering) who were looting art throughout the occupied countries of Europe during the Second World War. If it was sold on consignment, however, then the heirs of the family (who brought suit in the United States to recover the painting) would be out of luck. Their only recourse would be to find the Parisian art dealer and sue him for the proceeds. But maybe the painting was stolen, in which case the heirs might have a claim to get it back. After the painting left the art dealer in Paris, it wound up in Switzerland, and went through the hands of various purchasers, finally winding up in a private art collection in Chicago. The owner donated it to the Art Institute, and the real legal battle began -- between the heirs who claimed the painting had been stolen, and the Art Institute, which of course wanted to keep it (though the Institute would have returned it to the heirs if the Institute had been convinced that the painting indeed had been stolen).

Although the author, Howard Trienens, represented the defendant art collector in Chicago, I found his book exceptionally fair in its meticulous treatment of the provenance (sales history) of the Degas painting and in describing the negotiations that ensued between the heirs and the Art Institute. Like the Degas painting itself, the book is a little gem.

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