Cityscape Number 10: May 12, 2021

The Metropole’s listing of recent, forthcoming, or overlooked writing.  Recent Books Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of EuropeBy Judith Herrin, Princeton University Press, 2020 O lone Ravenna! many a tale is toldOf thy great glories of the days of old;Two thousand years have passed since thou didst seeCaesar ride forth to royal victoryRavenna, Oscar Wilde […]

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Tearing Down Misconceptions — A Review of “The Life and Death of Ancient Cities”

Woolf, Greg. The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Reviewed by Kathryn Grossman On December 21, 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.” Stipulating that “classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings” in Washington, […]

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A Contemporary Path to Transportation Justice

Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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Manhattan’s Many Congregations — A Review of God in Gotham

Butler, Jon. God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020. Reviewed by Bob Carey If I were still teaching Introduction to Religion in American History, I would assign Jon Butler’s God in Gotham, with its excellent cameos of Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Abraham […]

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Right in the Way: Generations of Highway Impacts in Houston

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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Remembering Sweet Auburn Before the Expressway: What Nostalgia Reveals About the Limits of Postwar Liberalism

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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Harnessing the Memory of Freeway Displacement in the Cream City

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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The Interstates: Planned Violence and the Need for Truth and Reconciliation

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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The Myth and the Truth about Interstate Highways

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles during April that examine the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past seven decades. The series, titled Justice and the Interstates, opens up new areas for historical inquiry, while also calling on policy makers and the transportation and urban planning professions to […]

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Accounting for Medical Examiners in Historical Autopsies of the Carceral State

By Will Tchakirides Following three nights of unrest in the Twin Cities last May, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman charged Minneapolis patrolman Derek Chauvin with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter of George Floyd. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison upgraded the charges to second-degree murder and charged the other three officers who watched Floyd’s killing with […]

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