Randol Contreras. The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. By Dianne Violeta Mausfeld East Los Angeles is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County with a population that is over 95 percent Latino, overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans. Mexican immigrants settled in this […]
David J. Goodwin. Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Peter C. Baldwin The horror fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, which sends delightful chills down the spines of his many fans, draws its power from its monsters and creepy settings, not from human characters. Lovecraft’s florid prose […]
Vishaan Chakrabarti. The Architecture Of Urbanity: Designing For Nature, Culture And Joy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Dasha Kuletskaya Can architects and other design professionals help tackle the global challenges humanity faces today? Can design be a tool to address climate change, rising inequality, and the spread of right-wing populism? Can architecture […]
Davida Siwisa James. Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries. New York: Fordham University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Kevin McGruder In Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries, author Davida Siwisa James uses several individual buildings and collections of buildings, the people who […]
Jesse Chanin. Building Power, Breaking Power: The United Teachers of New Orleans, 1965-2008. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2024. Reviewed by Daniel G. Cumming Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a Chicago Tribune columnist memorialized the catastrophe with disturbing notes of envy. Though full of chaos, tragedy, and heartbreak, […]
Richard E. Ocejo. Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Mario Hernandez Focusing on small cities rather than the large metropolitan areas typically covered in gentrification literature, Richard Ocejo’s Sixty Miles Up River makes significant contributions to the study of gentrification. Beyond location, […]
Sharon D. Wright Austin, ed. Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Sarena Martinez Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors, edited by political scientist professor Sharon D. Wright Austin, is a trailblazing volume that draws together twenty-two […]
Plaster, Joseph. Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Alex Melody Burnett At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, national media outlets developed a powerful new narrative about San Francisco. After years of tech-induced prosperity, San Francisco had supposedly entered a dangerous […]
Almazán, Jorge and Studiolab. Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City. Novato, CA: ORO Editions, 2022. Reviewed by Eric Häusler Emergent Tokyo is the result of the collaborative effort of Studiolab, an architecture studio at Keio University that combines interdisciplinary research with socially conscious architectural practice. Emergent Tokyo’s authors argue that Tokyo is a vibrant and […]
Mayorga, Sarah. Urban Specters: The Everyday Harm of Racial Capitalism. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Reviewed by Minh Q. Nguyen Sarah Mayorga’s Urban Specters: The Everyday Harms of Racial Capitalism provides an in-depth analysis of material life within two neighborhoods in Cincinnati, a Midwestern Rust Belt city, from the perspective of […]
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