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Race and Schooling in the City
Adam Yarmolinsky
Harvard University Press, 1981

Here is a sober report by fifteen of the nations leading experts on desegregation, the product of an American Academy study group that met to assess the radically changed character of the urban school desegregation struggle over the quarter century since the Supreme Court”s landmark decision. The distinguished contributors differ sharply in their ideas about the nature of this vexing social problem and in their proposed remedies. They grapple with the range of relevant issues, from the effects of desegregation on children to societal attitudes, demographic developments, “white flight,” resegregation, incentives and other policy options, individual versus group rights, and ethical and legal considerations.

This is a book that reaches beyond the old disputes about busing to consider the issue in new ways and to suggest new options. If there are no quick solutions to the schooling problems in the nation’s big cities, neither is there any excuse for ignorance about this matter. Rich in its implications for the future, Race and Schooling in the City offers fresh assessments of one of the country’s most visible and intractable controversies.

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Re-Centring the City
Urban Mutations, Socialist Afterlives and the Global East
Edited by Jonathan Bach and Michal Murawski
University College London, 2019
Re-Centring the City rethinks the concept of the center in studies of the urban across the social sciences and humanities. Through cases ranging from Moscow and Berlin to Mexico City, Cairo, and Chennai, the contributions explore the tension between forces of decentering and recentering as they reshape the political, economic, and social fabric of the urban and force us to reconsider the genealogy of the contemporary global city.    
By drawing our attention back to the center as an object of analytical and empirical study, this book counters a long-term trend in both planning and urban scholarship that emphasizes decentralization as the hallmark of the twenty-first-century city. It argues that such a “centrifugal” turn in urban studies is neither empirically accurate nor normatively incontestable, especially when one looks beyond the West. Rather, as the contributions to this volume show, decentering obscures the ways in which the center continues to exert a powerful influence on cities of today. The concise chapters, situated at the intersection of urban studies, social anthropology, architecture, and art theory, provide new perspectives on the role of the center in defining the city’s terrain. Together, they constitute a collection of sharp, provocative interventions into debates about the transformation of global urban forms in the twenty-first century.
 
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Reform and Revolt in the City of Dreaming Spires
Radical, Socialist and Communist Politics in the City of Oxford 1830–1980
Duncan Bowie
University of Westminster Press, 2018
Books about Oxford have generally focused on the University rather than the city. This original book on the local politics of Oxford City from 1830 to 1980 is based on a comprehensive analysis of primary sources and tells the story of the city’s progressive politics. The book traces this history from Chartism and electoral reform in the mid-nineteenth century, through the early years of socialism to the impact of communism in the interwar period, the struggle between nuclear disarmers and Gaitskellites in the 1960s and the impact of the new revolutionary left in the late 1970s. Throughout the narrative, the book contrasts the two approaches of those engaged in progressive politics, those who focused on the politics of reform and improved government and those who preferred the politics of revolt, protest and revolutionary rhetoric. The author argues that a central feature of this history has been the co-existence and interaction of working- and middle- class elements. It rediscovers a rich heritage, a fascinating story and offers a rare wide-ranging chronological narrative of local UK city politics. Through its extensive quotes from primary sources, the book presents a vivid picture of local politics over 150 years.
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Re-Imagining the City
Art, Globalization and Urban Spaces
Edited by Elizabeth Grierson and Kristen Sharp
Intellect Books, 2013
Re-Imagining the City: Art, Globalization, and Urban Spaces examines how contemporary processes of globalization are transforming cultural experience and production in urban spaces. It maps how cultural productions in art, architecture, and communications media are contributing to the reimagining of place and identity through events, artifacts, and attitudes. This book recasts how we understand cities—how knowledge can be formed, framed, and transferred through cultural production and how that knowledge is mediated through the construction of aesthetic meaning and value.

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front cover of Return to the City of Joseph
Return to the City of Joseph
Modern Mormonism's Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo
Scott C. Esplin
University of Illinois Press, 2018
In the mid-twentieth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) returned to Nauvoo, Illinois, home to the thriving religious community led by Joseph Smith before his murder in 1844. The quiet farm town became a major Mormon heritage site visited annually by tens of thousands of people. Yet Nauvoo's dramatic restoration proved fraught with conflicts. Scott C. Esplin's social history looks at how Nauvoo's different groups have sparred over heritage and historical memory. The Latter-day Saint project brought it into conflict with the Community of Christ, the Midwestern branch of Mormonism that had kept a foothold in the town and a claim on its Smith-related sites. Non-Mormon locals, meanwhile, sought to maintain the historic place of ancestors who had settled in Nauvoo after the Latter-day Saints' departure. Examining the recent and present-day struggles to define the town, Esplin probes the values of the local groups while placing Nauvoo at the center of Mormonism's attempt to carve a role for itself within the greater narrative of American history.
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Revolution in the City of Heroes
A Memoir of the Battle that Sparked Indonesia's National Revolution
Suhario Padmodiwiryo
National University of Singapore Press, 2016
The diary of 24-year-old Indonesian medical student Suhario Padmodiwiryo,
alias ‘Hario Kecik,” Revolution in the City of Heroes is an evocative first-hand
account of the popular uprising in Surabaya. It vividly portrays the chaotic swirl
of events and the heady emotion of young people ready to sacrifice their lives
for independence.


Newly liberated from nearly four brutal years under Japanese control, the
people of Indonesia faced great uncertainty in October 1945. As the British
Army attempted to take control of the city of Surabaya, maintain order and
deal with surrendered Japanese personnel, their actions were interpreted by
the young residents of Surabaya as a plan to restore Dutch colonial rule. In
response, the youth of the city seized Japanese arms and repelled the force sent
to occupy the city. They then held off British reinforcements for two weeks,
battling tanks and heavy artillery with little more than light weapons and sheer
audacity. Though eventually defeated, Surabaya’s defenders had set the stage
for Indonesia’s national revolution.
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Ricky in the City
Where the Wildlife Live
Judith L. Li
Oregon State University Press, 2019
It’s early fall when Ricky and Ellie travel to Portland from their homes in the Cascade Mountains for a weekend school exchange.  Much to their surprise, they find an astounding variety of wildlife in the city. With the help of their new friends, Jenny and Marcus, they explore Portland’s habitats, from its streets and gardens to woodlands, streams, and river banks. Ellie tests her bird-watching skills while Ricky learns ways to count fish in streams. Together they are fascinated by stunning wildlife in the city’s restored wetlands.

The kids find insects and reptiles moving about garden patches and bioswales, song birds and squirrels in neighborhood tree canopies, falcons and eagles crossing spacious river floodplains. As they record and map how wildlife and people are connected in these city spaces, they become community scientists, contributing to actual regional databases. After they see the young trees Marcus planted in his neighborhood, the feeders Jenny tends for hummingbirds, and the fascinating wildlife underpasses built in the wetlands, Ricky and Ellie realize there are many ways people actively care for the city’s wildlife.

In this fourth and final story of their award-winning children’s series, M. L. Herring’s vivid pen and watercolor illustrations complement the engaging storytelling of Judith Li. Readers will delight in the journal pages and maps “hand drawn” by Ricky and Ellie at the end of each chapter, while the “Dear Reader” section offers further tips for budding citizen scientists.
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River in the City
Janet Skrbina
Michigan Publishing Services, 2019


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