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East Asia Modern
Shaping the Contemporary City
Peter G. Rowe
Reaktion Books, 2005
An exciting explosion of urban expansion is occurring in East Asia: cities such as Singapore, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai are expanding at a prodigious rate and bringing widespread change to the region. Peter G. Rowe's East Asia Modern is a timely comparative analysis of urban growth in this rapidly evolving part of the globe.

A renowned scholar on East Asian architecture and urbanism, Peter G. Rowe examines how the unique modernizing process of East Asian cities can be most usefully understood. Rowe offers a historical assessment of the region, chronicling the cities' development over the last century and setting into context their individual paths toward becoming modern. Rowe explains what the modernizing process has meant for the cultural diffusion of predominantly Western ideas, how East Asian urban regions have developed a distinct type of modernity, and what lessons can be gleaned from the contemporary East Asian experience. Refuting many common misconceptions about contemporary East Asian life, East Asia Modern offers a readable critical assessment of life in modern East Asia while also pointing to possibilities for the future.
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Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs
Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley
Island Press, 2015
As world population grows, and more people move to cities and suburbs, they place greater stress on the operating system of our whole planet. But urbanization and increasing densities also present our best opportunity for improving sustainability, by transforming urban development into desirable, lower-carbon, compact and walkable communities and business centers.

Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley seek to demonstrate that a sustainable built and natural environment can be achieved through ecodesign, which integrates the practice of planning and urban design with environmental conservation, through normal business practices and the kinds of capital programs and regulations already in use in most communities. Ecodesign helps adapt the design of our built environment to both a changing climate and a rapidly growing world, creating more desirable places in the process.

In six comprehensively illustrated chapters, the authors explain ecodesign concepts, including the importance of preserving and restoring natural systems while also adapting to climate change; minimizing congestion on highways and at airports by making development more compact, and by making it easier to walk, cycle and take trains and mass transit; crafting and managing regulations to insure better placemaking and  fulfill consumer preferences, while incentivizing preferred practices; creating an inviting and environmentally responsible public realm from parks to streets to forgotten spaces; and finally how to implement these ecodesign concepts.          

Throughout the book, the ecodesign framework is demonstrated by innovative practices that are already underway or have been accomplished in many cities and suburbs—from Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm to False Creek North in Vancouver to Battery Park City in Manhattan, as well as many smaller-scale examples that can be adopted in any community. 

Ecodesign thinking is relevant to anyone who has a part in shaping or influencing the future of cities and suburbs – designers, public officials, and politicians.
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Economic Factors in the Growth of Corporate Giving
Ralph Lowell Nelson
Russell Sage Foundation, 1970
Examines the dramatic changes in the philanthropic behavior of business corporations in their support of education, health, welfare, and the arts. This analysis shows how traditional patterns of corporate philanthropy have undergone changes across the years, and how, presently, a favorable attitude exists toward giving. The author traces these shifts through periods of depression, war, and peace. He examines economic and non-economic reasons for the growth of corporate giving, and treats the innovative role of company-sponsored foundations.
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Economic Response
Comparative Studies in Trade, Finance, and Growth
Charles P. Kindleberger
Harvard University Press, 1978

Charles Kindleberger, an international economic specialist, seeks in this book to show how economic history and economic analysis can interact, giving particular attention to the question of how history can be used in a comparative setting to test economic models for generality. His history and examples span the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The important and unexpected result is to show how the applicable economic model in given instances is strongly conditioned by social, socio-psychological, and political settings in which a given stimulus elicits a particular response. As a by-product, Kindleberger throws light on the political economy of Western European states, especially in international economic dimensions, but also in technological change, scientific education, and economic growth.

In these spirited and lucid essays, Kindleberger discusses related and abiding economic questions: whether the creation of a world financial center is inevitable; what the possible bases for free trade are; how insights can be gained into present day multinational corporations; and how information networks can maximize benefits in trade, and can affect the quality of output, costs, and economies of scale.

Part of the author's interest is methodological. He believes that the comparative method—studying the same rather restricted problem in comparable economies in a fixed regional and temporal setting—yields richer insights than those available from the history of the single economy. While his own studies are limited to merchants, tariffs, free trade, capital markets, and ports, a methodological introductory chapter discusses a wider range of applications.

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The Economics of Adjustment and Growth
Second Edition
Pierre-Richard Agénor
Harvard University Press, 2004

This book provides a systematic and coherent framework for understanding the interactions between the micro and macro dimensions of economic adjustment policies; that is, it explores short-run macroeconomic management and structural adjustment policies aimed at promoting economic growth. It emphasizes the importance of structural microeconomic characteristics in the transmission of policy shocks and the response of the economy to adjustment policies. It has particular relevance to the economics of developing countries.

The book is directed to economists interested in an overview of the economics of reform; economists in international organizations, such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank, dealing with development; and economists in developing countries. It is also a text for advanced undergraduate students pursuing a degree in economic policy and management and students in political science and public policy.

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Effluent America
Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment
Martin V. Melosi
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001
Garbage, wastewater, hazardous waste: these are the lenses through which Melosi views nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. In broad overviews and specific case studies, Melosi treats the relationship between industrial expansion and urban growth from an ecological perspective.
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Egalitarian Capitalism
Jobs, Incomes, and Growth in Affluent Countries
Lane Kenworthy
Russell Sage Foundation, 2004
Declining participation in labor unions, the movement toward a service-based economy, and increased globalization have cast doubt on the extent to which welfare states can continue to stem inequality in market economies over the long-term. Does the new economy render existing models of social assistance obsolete? Do traditional welfare states hamper economic and employment growth, thereby worsening the plight of the poor? Lane Kenworthy offers a rigorous empirical analysis of these questions in Egalitarian Capitalism. The book examines sixteen industrialized countries in North America, Western Europe, and Scandinavia—each with different approaches to assisting the poor—to see how successful each has been in developing its economy and curbing inequality over the past twenty years. Kenworthy finds that inequality grew in almost all of these countries, from the most progressive to the least. Using simple but powerful statistical tests, he assesses the theory that inequality is necessary to improve economic growth and reduce poverty. He finds no necessary trade-off between equality and economic growth but discovers some evidence that high minimum wages dampen employment growth in private sector services. Kenworthy suggests that without greater private sector employment, public supports may be unable to adequately sustain living standards for the poor. An equitable growth strategy necessitates a balance of policy options: Creating jobs is aided by loose employment regulation, low payroll taxes, and, in some cases, lower real wages for workers at the bottom of the income spectrum. However, high employment is also facilitated by a system that "makes work pay" with earnings subsidies, workplace flexibilities, financial support for those who are between jobs or unable to work, and universal health and child care coverage. Kenworthy suggests that these strategies, though generally presented as mutually exclusive, could be effectively combined to create a robust, fair economy. Egalitarian Capitalism addresses fundamental questions of national policy with rigorous scholarship and a clarity that makes it accessible to any reader interested in the alleged trade-off between social equity and market efficiency. The book analyzes the viability of traditional welfare regimes and offers sustainable options that can promote egalitarian societies without hampering economic progress. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology
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The Electric City
Energy and the Growth of the Chicago Area, 1880-1930
Harold L. Platt
University of Chicago Press, 1991
No symbol of progress in our century is more galvanizing than electricity—electric power and the technology it has spawned. The "invisible world" of electric energy that was emerging at the turn of the century is one we take for granted, but its influence on the growth and quality of city life was, and remains, profound. Using Chicago as a test case, Harold L. Platt investigates the emergence of an urban-based, energy-intensive society over the course of half a century in this first book-length history of energy use in the city.
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The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s
Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change
Dorceta E. Taylor
Duke University Press, 2009
In The Environment and the People in American Cities, Dorceta E. Taylor provides an in-depth examination of the development of urban environments, and urban environmentalism, in the United States. Taylor focuses on the evolution of the city, the emergence of elite reformers, the framing of environmental problems, and the perceptions of and responses to breakdowns in social order, from the seventeenth century through the twentieth. She demonstrates how social inequalities repeatedly informed the adjudication of questions related to health, safety, and land access and use. While many accounts of environmental history begin and end with wildlife and wilderness, Taylor shows that the city offers important clues to understanding the evolution of American environmental activism.

Taylor traces the progression of several major thrusts in urban environmental activism, including the alleviation of poverty; sanitary reform and public health; safe, affordable, and adequate housing; parks, playgrounds, and open space; occupational health and safety; consumer protection (food and product safety); and land use and urban planning. At the same time, she presents a historical analysis of the ways race, class, and gender shaped experiences and perceptions of the environment as well as environmental activism and the construction of environmental discourses. Throughout her analysis, Taylor illuminates connections between the social and environmental conflicts of the past and those of the present. She describes the displacement of people of color for the production of natural open space for the white and wealthy, the close proximity between garbage and communities of color in early America, the cozy relationship between middle-class environmentalists and the business community, and the continuous resistance against environmental inequalities on the part of ordinary residents from marginal communities.

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Equilibrium and Growth in the World Economy
Ragnar Nurkse
Harvard University Press

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Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge
Deborah G. Mayo
University of Chicago Press, 1996
We may learn from our mistakes, but Deborah Mayo argues that, where experimental knowledge is concerned, we haven't begun to learn enough. Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge launches a vigorous critique of the subjective Bayesian view of statistical inference, and proposes Mayo's own error-statistical approach as a more robust framework for the epistemology of experiment. Mayo genuinely addresses the needs of researchers who work with statistical analysis, and simultaneously engages the basic philosophical problems of objectivity and rationality.

Mayo has long argued for an account of learning from error that goes far beyond detecting logical inconsistencies. In this book, she presents her complete program for how we learn about the world by being "shrewd inquisitors of error, white gloves off." Her tough, practical approach will be important to philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, and will be welcomed by researchers in the physical, biological, and social sciences whose work depends upon statistical analysis.
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Evidence of Editing
Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible
Reinhard Müller
SBL Press, 2014

A new perspective on editorial activity in the Hebrew Bible for research and teaching

Evidence of Editing lays out the case for substantial and frequent editorial activity within the Hebrew Bible. The authors show how editors omitted, expanded, rewrote, and compiled both smaller and larger phrases and passages to address religious and political change. The book refines the exegetical method of literary and redaction criticism, and its results have important consequences for the future use of the Hebrew Bible in historical and theological studies.

Features:

  • Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic examples of editorial activity
  • Clear explanations of the distinctions between textual, literary, and redaction criticism
  • Fifteen chapters attesting to continual editorial activity in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings
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The Evolution of the Human Head
Daniel E. Lieberman
Harvard University Press, 2011

In one sense, human heads function much like those of other mammals. We use them to chew, smell, swallow, think, hear, and so on. But, in other respects, the human head is quite unusual. Unlike other animals, even our great ape cousins, our heads are short and wide, very big brained, snoutless, largely furless, and perched on a short, nearly vertical neck. Daniel E. Lieberman sets out to explain how the human head works, and why our heads evolved in this peculiarly human way.

Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many components of the head function, how they evolved since we diverged from the apes, and how they interact in diverse ways both functionally and developmentally, causing them to be highly integrated. This integration not only permits the head’s many units to accommodate each other as they grow and work, but also facilitates evolutionary change. Lieberman shows how, when, and why the major transformations evident in the evolution of the human head occurred. The special way the head is integrated, Lieberman argues, made it possible for a few developmental shifts to have had widespread effects on craniofacial growth, yet still permit the head to function exquisitely.

This is the first book to explore in depth what happened in human evolution by integrating principles of development and functional morphology with the hominin fossil record. The Evolution of the Human Head will permanently change the study of human evolution and has widespread ramifications for thinking about other branches of evolutionary biology.

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Evolutionary Patterns
Growth, Form, and Tempo in the Fossil Record
Edited by Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Scott Lidgard, and Frank K. McKinney
University of Chicago Press, 2001
With all the recent advances in molecular and evolutionary biology, one could almost wonder why we need the fossil record. Molecular sequence data can resolve taxonomic relationships, experiments with fruit flies demonstrate evolution and development in real time, and field studies of Galapagos finches have provided the strongest evidence for natural selection ever measured in the wild. What, then, can fossils teach us that living organisms cannot?

Evolutionary Patterns demonstrates the rich variety of clues to evolution that can be gleaned from the fossil record. Chief among these are the major trends and anomalies in species development revealed only by "deep time," such as periodic mass extinctions and species that remain unchanged in form for millions of years. Contributors explore modes of development, the tempo of speciation and extinction, and macroevolutionary patterns and trends. The result is an important contribution to paleobiology and evolutionary biology, and a spirited defense of the fossil record as a crucial tool for understanding evolution and development.

The contributors are Ann F. Budd, Efstathia Bura, Leo W. Buss, Mike Foote, Jörn Geister, Stephen Jay Gould, Eckart Hâkansson, Jean-Georges Harmelin, Lee-Ann C. Hayek, Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Kenneth G. Johnson, Nancy Knowlton, Scott Lidgard, Frank K. McKinney, Daniel W. McShea, Ross H. Nehm, Beth Okamura, John M. Pandolfi, Paul D. Taylor, and Erik Thomsen.
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Exeter, 1540-1640
The Growth of an English County Town, Revised Edition
Wallace T. MacCaffrey
Harvard University Press

Life in a provincial capital is the subject of this study of Exeter during the Elizabethan and early Stuart ages. The author offers new insight into the way the English middle-class lived and the way in which Tudor policy achieved its aims in the provinces. During this period, Exeter was characterized by its self-sufficiency and by an oligarchical control over every aspect of its civic life. Wallace MacCaffrey describes a semi-autonomous world in itself, in which a small interlocked group of merchant families, related by marriage, kept tight control over the economy, politics, religion, education and social activities.

Taking the inclinations and actions of the local figures as his points of departure, the author discusses such great issues of the age as the Reformation, the war with Spain, and the monarchy, and examines how often they were pushed aside or subordinated to local affairs. Although the local citizen body had no part in national policy making, it was called upon to participate in carrying out the directives which came from London; it did carry out these policies, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.

In writing this detailed study, MacCaffrey has drawn on hitherto unused files from the records of the city.

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