This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate... segregation they experience in American cities. American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation." The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.

This major new text presents a collection of recent writings on architecture and urbanism in the United States, with topics ranging from colonial to... contemporary times.  In terms of content and scope, there is no collection, in or out of print, directly comparable to this one. The essays are drawn from the past twenty years' of publishing in the field, arranged chronologically from colonial to contemporary and accessible in thematic groupings, contextualized and introduced by Keith Eggener. Drawing together 24 illustrated essays by major and emerging scholars in the field, American Architectural History is a valuable resource for students of the history of American art, architecture, urbanism, and material culture.

In American Architecture, Leland Roth introduces the reader to the major developments that shaped the American-built environment from before the arrival... of the Europeans to the present, from ceremonial enclosures and homes to Modernism and its discontents. There is extensive historical coverage of 17th and 18th century architecture and regional styles. On both the high style architecture of aspiration and the everyday vernacular architecture, Roth presents the historical impact of changes in conceptual imagery, style, building technology, landscape design, and town planning theory. He charts the gradual development of towns, cities, and suburbs along with the social, cultural, and political forces that shaped their growth.“Buildings, like politics, are based on the fine art of compromise, and every building represents a judicious balance between the conflicting needs and aspirations of the client, architect, and builder. Americans, especially, it would seem, have been caught between divergent needs and desires, between the impulse, on the one hand, to build pragmatically and efficiently, and the wish, on the other hand, to realize a conceptual ideal,” writes Roth. These ten chapters provide a full, reliable, and up-to-date description, analysis, and interpretation of American buildings and their architects. The 612 illustrations— consisting of photographs, drawings, plans and maps— are integrated throughout the text. Well-written and comprehensive, Roth’s American Architecture is invaluable as a guide, a study, and a reference.

American Architecture introduces the reader to the major developments that shaped the American-built environment from before the Europeans to the... present, from the everyday vernacular to the high style of aspiration. Leland M. Roth describes the impact of changes in conceptual imagery, style, building technology, landscape design, and town-planning theory throughout the nation’s history. Based on his acclaimed and influential Concise History of American Architecture (1980), this new book is double the length with twice as many illustrations, featuring expanded coverage of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, regional styles, and contemporary buildings and architects. The author charts the social, cultural, and political forces that shaped the growth and development of American towns, cities, and suburbs. In ten chapters with 612 illustrations, he provides a full, reliable, and up-to-date description, analysis, and interpretation of American buildings and their architects. The illustrations are integrated into the text and consist of photographs, drawings, plans, and maps. Well-written and comprehensive, American Architecture is invaluable as guide, study, and reference.

America has always presented a unique challenge to architects: should they emulate the Old World or respond to the demands of the New? David Handlin... tells the complex story with lucidity and insight. Almost from its seventeenth-century beginnings, American architecture was subject to two apparently contradictory processes--the practical and the grandiose. The first comes through in the vernacular buildings of rural America, the innovations of Jefferson, Bulfinch's fine civic buildings, the offices and factories of the Industrial Age, and the comfortable domestic tradition that lies behind the houses of the Greene Brothers and Frank Lloyd Wright. The second is seen in the unprecedented daring of the Chicago School--great engineers like Adler united with great designers like Sullivan; in the majestic state capitols, exhibition halls, and public buildings by firms such as McKim, Mead & White; in the luxury of Fifth Avenue mansions; and in the exuberance of commercial Manhattan. The revised edition ends with a lively account of recent developments--virtual architecture, the revival of historical styles (including modernism), the thirst for striking originality, and a new interest in the local, with figures including Stern, Meier, Gehry, and Mockbee.

Inspired by a new generation of librarians and children, Walter reconsiders the legacy passed on by the matriarchs of children s services and examines... more recent trends and challenges growing out of changes in educational philosophy and information technology. This thoroughly researched book includes the current issues and trends of * Outcome-based planning * Early literacy * Homework centers in libraries * Children s spacesWith extensive experience in children s services as well as library instruction issues, Walter brings readers vital information on the current state of library services to children.

Visual texts uniquely demonstrate the contested terms of American identity. In American Archives Shawn Michelle Smith offers a bold and disturbing... account of how photography and the sciences of biological racialism joined forces in the nineteenth century to offer an idea of what Americans look like--or "should" look like. Her varied sources, which include the middle-class portrait, baby picture, criminal mugshot, and eugenicist record, as well as literary, scientific, and popular texts, enable her to demonstrate how new visual paradigms posed bodily appearance as an index to interior "essence." Ultimately we see how competing preoccupations over gender, class, race, and American identity were played out in the making of a wide range of popular and institutional photographs.Smith demonstrates that as the body was variously mapped and defined as the key to essentialized identities, the image of the white middle-class woman was often held up as the most complete American ideal. She begins by studying gendered images of middle-class domesticity to expose a transformation of feminine architectures of interiority into the "essences" of "blood," "character," and "race." She reads visual documents, as well as literary texts by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pauline Hopkins, and Theodore Dreiser, as both indices of and forms of resistance to dominant images of gender, class, race, and national identity. Through this analysis Smith shows how the white male gaze that sought to define and constrain white women and people of color was contested and transformed over the course of the nineteenth century.Smith identifies nineteenth-century visual paradigms that continue to shape debates about the terms of American belonging today. American Archives contributes significantly to the growing field of American visual cultural studies, and it is unprecedented in explaining how practices of racialized looking and the parameters of "American looks" were established in the first place.

Letters, newspaper and magazine articles, excerpts from diaries and books, and critical reviews reveal what is derivative in American art, and... describe past culture.

Drawing on socio-economic and political studies as well as histories of religion, science, literature, and popular culture, this book explores the... diverse, conflicted history of American art and architecture within the United States from the European voyages of discovery and colonial conquest to the present dawn of a new millennium. Thematically interrelating the visual arts to other material artifacts and cultural practices, it text examines how artists and architects produced artwork that visually expressed various social and political values. Covering the years between 1492 and 2002, chapter titles include The Invention and Mapping of America, Religious Rituals and the Visual Arts in Colonial America, Art and the Consumer Revolution in Colonial America, Revolutionary Icons and the Representation of Republican Virtue, National Identity and Private Interests in Antebellum America, Art and Commerce in the Gilded Age, Modernist Art and Politics, Modernism/Postmodernism and the Survival of a Critical Vision, and Globalization and the Culture Wars. For individuals interested in a survey of American art.

An accessible, concise, and beautifully written survey of American art and architecture from 1600 to the present.This new survey provides a complete... history of American art and architecture from its seventeenth-century colonial beginnings to the latest installation and video work. Structured chronologically, the book defines the characteristics of the different periods and highlights the consistent forms, techniques, and styles that mark the art and architecture as distinctively American. Michael J. Lewis charts the ways in which American artists and architects both adopted and diverged from earlier European models to create an original visual language of their own. He also shows how that language in turn came to influence and eventually dominate art and architecture around the world.Professor Lewis integrates discussions of both buildings and works of visual art, revealing the shared social and aesthetic concerns that underlie the two. Vernacular, religious, secular, and corporate architecture appears alongside paintings, sculpture, photography, and new-media art. All the major American artists and works from the seventeenth century to today are included, such as epic history paintings by Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley; sublime landscapes by Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederick Church; society portraits by John Singer Sargent; groundbreaking abstract expressionist and pop art by Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Andy Warhol; and challenging sculptural, installation, and video works from more recent years by Robert Gober, Fred Wilson, and Matthew Barney.In architecture, dozens of different building types are illustrated and discussed, from the earliest colonial houses and churches to the most spectacular modernist and postmodernist houses, stations, museums, and iconic skyscrapers. 275 illustrations, 175 in color

Here is the most thorough, well-researched, and beautifully illustrated study ever to examine American art from a cultural perspective. The author... presents art and artists within the context of their times, including insights into the styles, trends, and political climate that defined each important era. He covers: * Painting * Sculpture * Decorative arts * Folk Art * Architecture * Photography Highlighted by more than 750 magnificent illustrations (165 in full color), this reference surveys American art from its beginnings in the colonial period through contemporary works, and charts the growth of a distinctly American art culture.

American Art: History and Culture is a thorough and engaging chronology of American art, including painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts,... photography, folk art, and graphic arts. Wayne Craven presents art and artists within the context of their times, including insights into the intellectual, spiritual, and political environment. Along the way Craven charts the growth of a distinctly American art culture. The resulting book is as much a history of American culture as of American art.