The Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews) have a unique history and religious tradition, one of the most fascinating aspects of which are the mäloksočč, commonly referred to as monks in scholarly and popular literature. The mäloksočč served as the supreme religious leaders of the Betä Ǝsraʾel and were charged with educating and initiating Betä Ǝsraʾel priests. They lived in separate compounds and observed severe purity laws prohibiting physical contact with the laity. Thus, they are the only known example in medieval and modern Jewry of ascetic communities withdrawing from the secular world and devoting themselves fully to religious life.

This book presents the results of the first comprehensive research ever conducted on the way of life and material culture of the ascetic religious communities of the Betä Ǝsraʾel. A major part of this research is an archaeological survey, during which these religious centres were located and documented in detail for the first time.

Climate change is no longer an abstract threat. Day after day, an already disrupted climate is impacting the lives of millions, and the time available to curtail climate change is alarmingly limited. Going for zero greenhouse gas emissions requires retooling everything about industry, agriculture, transportation, and every city and town that people inhabit. The work of architects, engineers, landscape architects, urban designers and the countless others who shape the built environment has never been more relevant. Decarbonizing how buildings are designed, constructed, and operated is a sea change that is already altering professional principles and practices. 

In Going for Zero: Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future​, seasoned architect and former AIA president Carl Elefante addresses how buildings and cities can and must help resolve the looming climate emergency. Elefante offers a decidedly alternative viewpoint, one informed by his architecture career rescuing buildings from senseless demolition and learning from the practices and wisdom embedded in built heritage.  

For architects and the countless others who work together creating human habitation, the twenty-first century imperatives demand a profound mode shift, from an expansion mindset to one of reintegration and healing. Elefante argues that curtailing the climate emergency, resolving intransigent social and economic injustice, and launching the urban era onto a truly beneficial and sufficient path presents challenges that must be addressed through built form.  

The challenge of our built environment and the possible solutions are covered in four sections: climate imperative, justice imperative, urban imperative, and beyond modernism. Elefante explains that revitalizing communities by optimizing existing resources makes social, economic, and environmental sense and directs resources where they are most needed.  

Going for Zero is an urgent call to action and path forward. Elefante’s message is ultimately one of hope—but we must act now. 

• Winner of the 2023 Michael Nelson Prize of International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST)
• Recipient of the 2022 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award
• Winner of the 2023 American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year
• Winner of the 2023 ULCC’s (Union League Club of Chicago) Outstanding Book on the History of Chicago Award
• Recipient of a 2023 Best of Illinois History Superior Achievement award from the Illinois State Historical Society
• Winner of the 2023 BAAS Book Prize (British Association for American Studies)
• Winner of a 2023 The Brinck Book Award and Lecture series (University of New Mexico School of Architecture + Planning)
• Honorable Mention for the 2021-22 RSAP Book Prize (Research Society for American Periodicals)

Buildings once symbolized Chicago's place as the business capital of Black America and a thriving hub for Black media. In this groundbreaking work, E. James West examines the city's Black press through its relationship with the built environment. As a house for the struggle, the buildings of publications like Ebony and the Chicago Defender embodied narratives of racial uplift and community resistance. As political hubs, gallery spaces, and public squares, they served as key sites in the ongoing Black quest for self-respect, independence, and civic identity. At the same time, factors ranging from discriminatory business practices to editorial and corporate ideology prescribed their location, use, and appearance, positioning Black press buildings as sites of both Black possibility and racial constraint.

Engaging and innovative, A House for the Struggle reconsiders the Black press's place at the crossroads where aspiration collided with life in one of America's most segregated cities.