All Roads Lead to the American CityPeter Swirski Hong Kong University Press, 01.04.2007 - 162 Seiten All Roads Lead to the American City provides an original view of the urban culture in America seen through its irrevocable ties with the cities and roads. Examining the history, cinema, literature, cultural myths and social geography of the United States, the book puts some of the greatest as well as the "baddest" American cities under the microscope. Taking the role of the roads that crisscross and connect the cities as their shared point of reference, these essays explore ways to understand the people who live, commute, work, create, govern, commit crime and conduct business in them.Cities, for the most part, are America. Their values and problems define not only what the United States is, but what other nations perceive the United States to be. Roads and transportation, on the other hand, and their impact on the American culture and lifestyle, form not only the integral part of the historical rise-and-shine of the modern city, but a physical release from and a cultural antidote to its pressure-cooker stresses. Tracing the boundless variety and complexity of these twin themes, All Roads Lead to the American City is built around an interlinked series of essays on the urban culture in America. Juxtaposing the city and the road, it looks alternatively at cities as historical, geographical, social and cultural centres of life in the land, and at roads as physical as well as metaphorical arteries that lead in and out of the city. |
Inhalt
Chapter 2 In the City and on the Road in Asian American Film
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Chapter 3 A Is for American B I
s for Bad C Is for City | |
Chapter 4 Just Apassin Through
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Chapter 5 Urbs Americana
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Notes
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Contributors
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Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
87th Precinct African American American city American urban Angeles Asian American automobile become betterment Big Bad City California Census Chan Is Missing Chicago Chinatown Chinese Chudacoff and Smith Cinema city’s Civil Rights continued cops country’s crime fiction cultural decades Democratic Detroit dominant Dream Ê ÃÊv ÀÊ Ê Ê economic Ed McBain ÊÌ iÊ environment ethnic European experience filmmaker frontier genre ghettos global highway Hollywood immigrants increasingly industrial Kerouac Kochiyama landscape literature living manufacturing McBain’s mega-city metropolis metropolitan areas million modern Monkkonen moved movement ofAmerican percent police political population President racial Rea Tajiri religious road movie road trip rural San Francisco settlement social South space streets suburban suburbs Swirski Tajima-Peña Theodore Roosevelt Tom Vu Town twentieth century United urban centers urban system Victor Wong West World writers York City Yuri Yuri Kochiyama