Urban Politics

No two days were ever the same for bobby-on-the-beat Martyn Johnson. Come rain or come shine, he patrolled his patch with a sharp eye for troublemakers and a kind word for those in need of a friend. Whether he was pursuing unlikely coal thieves, tracking down peacocks gone AWOL or investigating mysterious flying saucers over Sheffield, PC Johnson faced every new challenge with a smile and a healthy dose of his copper's common sense. In his charming and funny memoir, Martyn Johnson recalls his life on the beat.

White Americans have long been comfortable in the assumption that they are the cultural norm. Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation’s diverse cultural reality, a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a Black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.

Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parents—and finding community in each other.

"Leggende Metropolitane" è un audiolibro che nasce dalla volontà di condividere un percorso di oltre venti anni di ricerche, analisi e approfondimenti da parte dell'autore sul tema del folklore contemporaneo e dell'immaginario collettivo. L'audiolibro parte con il cercare di analizzare il fenomeno della "leggenda metropolitana”, del rumor, come forma narrativa a sé stante, con il punto di vista della psicologia sociale e con approccio documentaristico. Il volume racconta, approfondisce e in molti casi spiega oltre cento storie, organizzate per temi.

This Very Short Introduction recounts the history of American culture and its creation by diverse social and ethnic groups. In doing so, it emphasizes the historic role of culture in relation to broader social, political, and economic developments. Across the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as language, region, and religion, diverse Americans have forged a national culture with a global reach, inventing stories that have shaped a national identity and an American way of life.

The testimony that the author has gleaned for this audiobook from the 30-year record of the House Un-American Activities Committee focuses on HUAC's treatment of artists, intellectuals, and performers. This highly readable and absorbing collection of significant excerpts from the hearings shows with painful clarity how HUAC grew from a panel that investigated possible subversive activities in a "dignified" manner to a huge, unrelenting accusatory finger from which almost no one was safe.

New York has long been both America’s leading cultural center and its sports capital, with far more championship teams, intracity World Series, and major prizefights than any other city. New York Sports collects the work of 14 leading sport historians, providing new insight into the social and cultural history of America’s major metropolis and of the United States.

Blood-sucking vampires and vegan psychics don’t mix. But to save the world from a magic-stealing madman, they’re going to have to. The Delta Underground Operatives, humanity’s last line of defense against evil threats, only enlist the brightest and the best. Clara and Damien fit the bill. So when a threat like no other can only be stopped by a perfect assassin team, the organization recruits these two unlikely vigilantes with complementary skill sets.

At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston's Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city's adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city's North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the city's red-light district.

Author, social critic, and “New York City’s career elegist” (New York Times), Jeremiah Moss felt alienated in a town that had become suburbanized and sanitized. Then lockdown launched an unprecedented urban experiment: What happens when an entire social class abandons the city? Out in streets made vibrant by New Yorkers left behind, Moss found a sense of freedom he never thought possible.

Nation’s Metropolis describes how the national capital region functions as a metropolitan political economy. Its authors distinguish aspects of the Washington region that reflect its characteristics as a national capital from those common to most other metropolitan regions and to other capitals. To do so, they employ an interdisciplinary approach that draws from economics, political science, sociology, geography, and history.

For fifty years “Detroit” has been shorthand for all that's wrong with urban America: crime, corruption, decay, racial tension, struggling businesses, failing schools, a declining tax base, and more. Since 1950 Detroit has lost two-thirds of its population, falling from fifth place in the U.S. (just behind Los Angeles) to twenty-fourth (just behind Nashville). Between 2000 and 2017 alone, its population fell 28%, a steeper drop than any other major American city.

The Power of Art is an epic work of non-fiction that will transform our understanding of the world by unlocking the human stories behind millennia of art. Taking listeners from ancient Babylon to contemporary Pyongyang, the eminent curator Caroline Campbell explains art's power to illuminate our lives, and inspires us to benefit from its transformative and regenerative power.

In The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn, Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler tell the story of 19th-century Brooklyn's domination by upper- and middle-class Protestants with roots in Puritan New England. This lively history describes the unraveling of the control they wielded as more ethnically diverse groups moved into the "City of Churches" during the 20th century.

Oklahoma City. Indianapolis. Charleston. Des Moines. What do these cities have in common? They are cities of modest size but outsized accomplishment, powered by a can-do spirit, valuing compromise over confrontation and progress over political victory. These are the cities leading America...and they're not waiting for Washington's help. As mayor of one of America's most improved cities, Cornett used a bold, creative, and personal approach to orchestrate his city's renaissance. Once regarded as a forgettable city in "flyover country", Oklahoma City has become one of our nation's most dynamic places - and it is not alone.

Mach was aus dir und werde glücklich? Willkommen im Dauerstress der Selbstoptimierung! In "Ich mach mich fertig" rechnet Karlotta Ehrenberg ebenso scharfsinnig wie spitzzüngig mit dem Diktat unserer Zeit ab: der unablässigen Arbeit an uns selbst. Höher, schneller, schöner, besser: Getrieben von dem Wunsch nach Selbstoptimierung und -verwirklichung leiden wir mehr denn je unter psychischem Stress. Entspannung? Die wird heute wie alles andere im Leben akribisch geplant - inklusive Yoga, Therapie und Achtsamkeit.

As the United Kingdom left the European Union, during a period of international and domestic turmoil, London found itself at a turning point. This critical moment presents an opportunity to look back, with a distinctive perspective, a focus on London in its national and, perhaps even more importantly, its international contexts, rather than on the city in isolation. It is the interactions of London that Black considers, and he does so in order to address the question as to why London became the foremost international city, how it sustained that position and what its future holds.

Paris, 1981: Die Hauptstadt der ehemaligen Kolonialmacht ist für viele vietnamesische Flüchtlinge der rettende Hafen nach einer langen Irrfahrt über die Weltmeere. Auch der namenlose Ich-Erzähler und sein bester Freund Bon haben es aus ihrer Heimat nach Europa geschafft. Auf der Suche nach einem Job geraten sie an die vietnamesische Drogenmafia. Als Dealer machen sie ein gutes Geschäft, und der Ich-Erzähler, ein ehemaliger kommunistischer Spion, profitiert von einem Wirtschaftssystem, das er eigentlich ablehnt.

Attempted murders, intrigue, and scandal are all in a day’s work for Eve, one of DC’s most sought-after escorts. Her admirers include corporate executives, DC cops, and other smitten johns who have seen her dance at the Tahiti men’s club. None of them know her secret. She’s April Walsh, a housewife and writer who has gone deep undercover to investigate DC vice from the inside. Her first priority has always been her marriage. Her writing career has had to take a back seat. That changes when April is assigned to write a story about the sex industry.

Through 10 unique cities, from the founding of ancient capitals to buzzing modern megacities, Paul Strathern explores how urban centres lead civilisation forward, enjoying a moment of glory before passing on the baton. We journey back to discover Babylonian mathematics, Athenian theatre and intellectual debate, and Roman construction that has lasted millennia. We see Constantinople evolve into Istanbul, revolutionary sparks fly in Enlightenment Paris, and the railways, canals and ships that built Imperial London.