Anthony D. King - Böcker

The Study focuses on the social and, more especially, the cultural processes governing colonial urban development and develops a theory and methodology to do this.The author demonstrates how the physical and spatial arrangements characterizing urban development are unique products of a particular society, to be understood only in terms of its values, behaviour and institutions and the distribution of social and political power within it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in 'colonial cities' of Asia and Africa where the environmental assumptions of a dominant, industrializing Western power were introduced to largely 'pre-industrial' societies. Anthony King draws his material primarily from these areas, and includes a case study of the development of colonial Delhi from the early nineteenth century to 1947. Yet, as the author explains, the problems of how cultural social and political factors influence the nature of environments and how these in turn affect social processes and behaviour, are of global significance.This book was first published in 1976.

The Study focuses on the social and, more especially, the cultural processes governing colonial urban development and develops a theory and methodology to do this.The author demonstrates how the physical and spatial arrangements characterizing urban development are unique products of a particular society, to be understood only in terms of its values, behaviour and institutions and the distribution of social and political power within it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in 'colonial cities' of Asia and Africa where the environmental assumptions of a dominant, industrializing Western power were introduced to largely 'pre-industrial' societies. Anthony King draws his material primarily from these areas, and includes a case study of the development of colonial Delhi from the early nineteenth century to 1947. Yet, as the author explains, the problems of how cultural social and political factors influence the nature of environments and how these in turn affect social processes and behaviour, are of global significance.This book was first published in 1976.

Buildings are essentially social and cultural products. They result from social needs and accommodate a variety of functions - economic. social. political. religious. Their size. appearance. location and form result not simply from physical factors such as mat­erials. climate or technology. nor from architects· designs. but from a society's ideas. its forms of economic and social organisation. and the beliefs and values which prevail at any one time. Society produces its buildings and the buildings help to maintain many of its social forms.

Representations of the city have typically focused on urban dichotomies such as renewal or decline, poverty or prosperity, and politics or culture. These simplistic portrayals leave many fundamental questions unanswered. What constitutes a city? What images and discourses are used to construct it? What makes city dwellers succeed or fail? Discussing recent visual, architectural and spatial transformations in New York and other major world cities in relation to the themes of ethnicity, capital, and culture, Re- Presenting the City moves between interpretative representations of the newly emerging metropolis and the theoretical and methodological questions raised by the task of representation itself. Contributors from an wide range of backgrounds--urban planning, philosophy, sociology, folklore studies, cultural studies and architecture--reflect on the construction of both the real and the unreal city, the images, metaphors and discourses through which the contemporary city is represented, and the texts which both mediate our experience of, as well as contribute to producing, the city of the future.

Representations of the city have typically focused on urban dichotomies such as renewal or decline, poverty or prosperity, and politics or culture. These simplistic portrayals leave many fundamental questions unanswered. What constitutes a city? What images and discourses are used to construct it? What makes city dwellers succeed or fail? Discussing recent visual, architectural and spatial transformations in New York and other major world cities in relation to the themes of ethnicity, capital, and culture, Re- Presenting the City moves between interpretative representations of the newly emerging metropolis and the theoretical and methodological questions raised by the task of representation itself. Contributors from an wide range of backgrounds--urban planning, philosophy, sociology, folklore studies, cultural studies and architecture--reflect on the construction of both the real and the unreal city, the images, metaphors and discourses through which the contemporary city is represented, and the texts which both mediate our experience of, as well as contribute to producing, the city of the future.

The way we understand particular spaces is mediated by our perceptions of the difference between the sacred and the profane. Throughout history, different peoples have revered vastly diverse spaces as sacred for vastly diverse reasons. In Sacred Spaces, Benjamin Z. Kedar and R. J. Zwi Werblowsky have compiled a wide-ranging collection of essays exploring a broad array of ancient and contemporary holy places. The book reviews sacred spaces of the ancient religions--Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Indian and East-Asian Religions--and discusses how these spaces have been conceptualized and experienced. Chapter topics include an investigation of the role of charismatic dreams in the creation of sacred sites in present-day Israel; an analysis of cities as cultic centers in Germany and Italy during the Middle Ages; a history of the sacred Mount Hiko in Japan; and a study of the Muslim holy cities as foci of Islamic revivalism in the eighteeth century. Sacred Spaces provides readers with original and illuminating examples of the myriad ways in which we perceive and construct sacred space.

A foundational work in the study of the globalization of culture.First published in 1991, Culture, Globalization and the World-System is one of the inaugural books discussing the increasing tendency of cultural practices to cross national boundaries. Now widely available in the United States for the first time and updated with a new preface, these influential essays by a distinguished group of scholars and cultural critics lay the groundwork for a vital and exciting new field of inquiry.Culture, Globalization and the World-System views culture through different prisms and categories-including race, gender, ethnicity, class, and nation. The contributors consider how socially organized systems of meaning are produced and represented. Drawing from sociology, art history, film studies, and anthropology, these essays-many of them representing their authors’ only treatment of globalization-provide paradigms for understanding cultures and the representation of identity in “the world as a single place.” Contributors: Barbara Abou-El-Haj, SUNY, Binghamton; Janet Abu-Lughod, New School for Social Research; Stuart Hall, Open U, UK; Ulf Hannerz, U of Stockholm, Sweden; Roland Robertson, U of Pittsburgh; John Tagg, SUNY, Binghamton; Maureen Turim, U of Florida, Gainesville; Immanuel Wallerstein, SUNY, Binghamton; Janet Wolff, U of Rochester.