James Gilbert – författare

Examining the 1950s debate over the media and juvenile delinquency, this study shows how the development of youth culture and the rise of a mass-media society became intertwined and confused.

The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair was a major event in early twentieth-century America. Attracting millions of tourists, it exemplified the Victorian predilection for public spectacle. The Fair has long served as a touchstone for historians interested in American culture prior to World War I and has endured in the memories of generations of St. Louis residents and visitors. In "Whose Fair?" James Gilbert asks: what can we learn about the lived experience of fairgoers when we compare historical accounts, individual and collective memories, and artifacts from the event? Exploring these differing, at times competing, versions of history and memory prompts Gilbert to dig through a rich trove of archival material. He examines the papers of David Francis, the Fair's president and subsequent chief archivist; guidebooks and other official publications; the 1944 film "Meet Me in St. Louis"; diaries, oral histories, and other personal accounts; and a collection of striking photographs. From this dazzling array of sources, Gilbert paints a lively picture of how fairgoers spent their time, while also probing the ways history and memory can complement each other.

In this elegant and sensitive look at the milieu of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, James Gilbert examines the three utopias that were designed to bring order to the chaos of urban life: The World's Fair itself, George Pullman's community for his workers, and Dwight Moody's evangelical crusade. Gilbert draws upon a rich selection of fiction, collective biography, architecture, photographs, and souvenir books to show how these experiments each acted as a middle-class prescription for coming to terms with the new cultural diversity and competition resulting from the disruptive forces of technological change, commercial enterprise, and pluralism."Mr. Gilbert's splendid book opens the door on a conflicted past, and provides an indispensable perspective on the troubled and troubling struggle we face today between old and new, unity and diversity."—Alan Trachtenberg, New York Times"Perfect Cities is a remarkable account of a struggle for cultural definition. Chronicling the byplay between cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity, unity and diversity, James Gilbert not only throws light on Chicago's past but also provides insight that can be applied to the cultural debates of our own time."—Adria Bernardi, Chicago Tribune"What Gilbert has done is to enable the reader to experience the grand utopian visions of the times, yet at the same time see the cantankerous reality that made the visions impossible."—Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

James Gilbert examines the confrontation between science and religion in the 20th century, as these disparate, sometimes hostile modes of thought clashed within the arena of American culture. Beginning in 1925 with the Scopes trial, Gilbert traces nearly 40 years of conflicting American attitudes toward science and religion. From Harvard intellectuals to Hollywood, from UFOs to the USAF, from sci-fi thrillers to the nightly news - American culture became a proving ground where the boundaries between science and religion were polemicized, propagandized, and contested. Gilbert argues that Catholics, Jews and Protestants alike were able to use the language of democracy and egalitarianism to check the growing authority of science. They did this by appealing to American tolerance of contending views and by presenting a populist counter-weight to what they portrayed as elitest claims to specialized knowledge. Eventually, asserts Gilbert, a kind of cultural paradox emerged in which two intrinsically dissimilar and mutually exclusive systems of explanation were accepted, respected and even encouraged.

-- Times Literary Supplement

Food analysis is increasingly important to maintain the high standard of food quality expected by the food industry and consumers. Selected areas of food contaminant analysis are reviewed in this work, with the focus on areas in which there have been recent developments or where the contaminant has some topicality. Information on techniques is also provided but the main emphasis is on applications. A major feature is the inclusion of a chapter on legislation covering all international regulations and guidelines. Each chapter has a reference section giving details of the specialist texts available covering individual techniques in greater depth. This book is intended as a reference source for food analysts and chemists, both in government laboratories and in the food industry, as well as regulatory officials and toxicologists.

'Analysis of Food Contaminants' was published in 1984 by Elsevier Applied Science Publishers and 10 years later I was asked to consider producing an updated second edition. Surprisingly little has really changed in a decade in terms of the public interest in food safety and the continued vigilance of Government in monitoring the food supply for contaminants. This means that food contamination in itself is still a very relevant topic. However, much has changed in terms of the techniques now employed in trace analysis. The 1984 book used a combination of an analytical technique and a specific food contaminant problem area per chapter (each written by a specialist) which resulted in a multi-authored text which was mostly application based but provided a good introduction to the 'how' in terms of applying techniques to real problems. Rather than producing a second edition of this text, it seemed on reflection more sensible to produce a new and complementary book, using the same formula as before of application plus technique, but to concentrate on contaminant areas of current interest and to highlight recent advances in techniques. Thus, the present book 'Progress in Food Contaminant Analysis' has originated as a follow-up to 'Analysis of Food Contaminants'.