Description
Book SynopsisA collection of essays, which historicize the contemporary discussion of urbanism, highlighting the local and global breadth of the city landscape. It focuses on issues such as street design in Vienna, the motion picture industry in Los Angeles, architecture in Marseilles and Algiers, and the kaleidoscopic paradox of post-apartheid Johannesburg.
Trade Review"This ambitious collection of essays is the result of a series of seminars at Princeton University aimed at developing fresh thinking about the city as a dynamic physical space that 'shapes, and is shaped by, power, economy, culture and society.' A fascinating introductory essay by Gyan Prakash outlines recent urban theorising and counters the idea that, in an age of globalisation, specific cityscapes are losing their significance: our urban experiences still depend on 'local lifeworlds', rich with memories and imagination."--The Guardian
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface ix Introduction by Gyan Prakash 1 SPATIAL IMAGINARIES 19 Chapter 1: Streets, Imaginaries, and Modernity: Vienna Is Not Berlin by David Frisby 21 Chapter 2: The Global Spaces of Los Angeles, 1920s-1930s by Philip J. Ethington 58 Chapter 3: Architecture at the Ends of Empire: Urban Reflections between Algiers and Marseille by Sheila Crane 99 Chapter 4: The City in Fragments: Kaleidoscopic Johannesburg after Apartheid by Martin J. Murray 144 SPATIAL POLITICS 179 Chapter 5: Violence and Spatial Politics between the Local and Imperial: Baghdad, 1778-1810 by Dina Rizk Khoury 181 Chapter 6: From the Lettered City to the Sellers' City: Vendor Politics and Public Space in Urban Mexico, 1880-1926 by Christina M. Jime'nez 214 Chapter 7: The City as Theater of Protest: West Berlin and West Germany, 1962-1983 by Belinda Davis 247 Chapter 8: Nuestro Pueblo: The Spatial and Cultural Politics of Los Angeles' Watts Towers by Sarah Schrank 275 SPACES OF EVERYDAY LIFE 311 Chapter 9: Morality, Majesty, and Murder in 1950s London: Metropolitan Culture and English Modernity by Frank Mort 313 Chapter 10: (Re)Imagining an African City: Performing Culture, Arts, and Citizenship in Dakar (Senegal), 1980-2000 by Mamadou Diouf 346 Chapter 11: Street Observation Science and the Tokyo Economic Bubble, 1986-1990 by Jordan Sand 373 Chapter 12: Spectacle and Death in the City of Bombay Cinema by Ranjani Mazumdar 401 Contributors 433 Index 437
