Marshall Poe interviewed Colin Gordon, author of Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City, for the New Books in History blog. An audio file of this extensive interview is available for download at newbooksinhistory.com.
Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City
Colin Gordon
304 pages | 7 x 10 | 78 color illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4070-2 | $55.00 | £36.00
A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series
Mapping Decline, illustrated with more than 75 full-color maps, traces the ways private real estate restrictions, local planning and zoning, federal housing policies, and urban renewal encouraged "white flight" and urban decline in St. Louis, Missouri.
Read more . . .
Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.
". . .[Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan] is an important addition to the literature on New York and the social world of leisure and entertainment that emerged between the wars," writes David S. Churchill in a recent H-Urban H-Net review of Burton W. Peretti's history of New York City night life and politics.
Read the entire review at www.h-net.org.
Marcy Sacks, author of Before Harlem: The Black Experience in New York City Before World War I, guides New York Times reporter John Strausbaugh through the Manhattan's San Juan Hill neighborhood in "Jazz in New York," an nytimes.com online video report.
In this video and the related New York Times article, Sacks not only describes the poor living conditions and ethnic tensions that shaped San Juan Hill in the early twentieth century. She also evokes the area's energetic cultural history.
Can urban colleges and universities find revitalization lessons in our neighborhood, West Philly? A professor and administrator at St. Joseph College in West Hartford, CT thinks so. In "Town And Gown: Philadelphia's Success Story," a recent Hartford Courant commentary, Dennis Barone writes:
Over the past decade, several colleges - including Trinity and Yale - have made substantial efforts to improve their urban neighborhoods. Judith Rodin has literally written the book on this topic. "The University & Urban Revival," based on her experience as president of the University of Pennsylvania, ought to be required reading for community organizers, city and regional leaders, business executives and educational administrators in Connecticut's capital region.
For the complete editorial, visit Courant.com.
The Penn Press Board of Trustees unanimously approved the following resolution of appreciation for the work of Martin Meyerson, University of Pennsylvania President Emeritus, who died earlier this year at the age of 84.
Resolution of Appreciation for Martin Meyerson, 1922-2007
In memoriam
For 26 years Martin Meyerson was closely involved with the University of Pennsylvania Press. In June 1971, soon after assuming the presidency of the University, Martin was appointed an Interim Director of the Press. He then chaired the Press's Board of Trustees from April 1984 until July 1997. In September 1997 he became Chair Emeritus. In celebration of his emeritus appointment, the Board established the Martin Meyerson Publication Fund to support exceptional books, especially in the fields of urban planning and design.
Be it RESOLVED, then, that the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc., on behalf of themselves, the staff, the Faculty Editorial Board, and Press authors, hereby declare their gratitude to Martin Meyerson for having contributed significantly to the continuance and growth of Penn Press through his leadership, inspiration, and commitment. He will be remembered as one of the Press's true champions.
The Texas Observer columnist Todd Moye praises Thomas F. Jackson's From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice in a recent review. Moye writes, "The book was written for academics, but it deserves a large audience." Here is an excerpt of the review:
Continue reading "Praise for Jackson in The Texas Observer" »
Felicia Kornbluh, author of The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America, has been hitting the airwaves from coast to coast this summer in live radio interviews. If you couldn't pick up the broadcast signals, you can still listen to the archival recordings on line by clicking on the links listed below.
In the latest volume of The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, reviewer Peter Siskind ranks Metropolitan Philadelphia: Living with the Presence of the Past with Nathaniel Popkin's Song of the City and Buzz Bissinger's A Prayer for the City. Siskind writes:
In Metropolitan Philadelphia: Living with the Presence of the Past, Steven Conn provides an incisive, learned and proudly unconventional portrait of the Philadelphia region. This richly textured and well-written volume attempts neither an exhaustive historical synthesis nor a focused examination of a particular time period or topic. Instead, Conn successfully strives for something different and distinctive--a deeply personal look through the prism of socioeconomic, cultural, religious, and environmental lenses at how Philadelphia's past and present interact with and shape each other.
History Collective subscribers can access the complete review here.
"The message to all universities is clear: Your
time for leadership has arrived; being a constructive, good neighbor
isn’t fluff -- it’s absolutely critical," writes syndicated columnist Neal Peirce in an op-ed praising the work of former University of Pennsylvania president Judith Rodin, author of The University and Urban Revival.
Pierce's column on the value of creating ties between town and gown, which appeared in The Seattle Times and on the National Academy of Public Administration website, outlines many Penn community engagement programs and links them to positive changes in the neighborhood of West Philadelphia. While some residents of West Philly may take issue with Pierce's stand and Rodin's actions, both the column and Rodin's book continue much needed debate on vital urban issues.
