Poor nations don't, or can't, devote adequate resources to improving their populations' health and well-being. Are the policies of the International Monetary Fund partly to blame for this? Rick Rowden explains how IMF dictates, and the neoliberal economic logic that ungirds them, block poor countries from developing.
Stephen Goldsmith & Lynne Elizabeth, eds., What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs New Village Press, 2010
Clare Cooper Marcus, Iona Dreaming Nicolas-Hays, 2010
Healing Landscapes (scroll down directory)
What if urban and suburban neighborhoods were designed specifically to meet the needs of children? If young people's preferences were given priority in design and planning decision making, where would children play and how would they develop? Clare Cooper Marcus asserts that parks and playgrounds are far from sufficient, and she points to child- and pedestrian-friendly designs implemented abroad.
Heather Rogers, Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution Scribner, 2010
Carbon offsets, organic food, and biofuels all promise to help us save the planet, by compensating for greenhouse gas emission, replacing petroleum, and reducing the pesticides and fertilizers that are poisoning our waterways and bodies. Unfortunately, says Heather Rogers, such products may be less green than they seem. She traveled around the world to investigate and her conclusions are devastating.
Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell Viking, 2010 (paper)
Rebecca Solnit, "When the Media is the Disaster: Covering Haiti" Huffington Post
A.C. Thompson, "Katrina's Hidden Race War" The Nation
Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina touched down on the Gulf Coast. What followed was a very human-made disaster, whipped up by a media that favored hype over accuracy. Yet it was also a moment of human-created solidarity and mutual aid. Award-winning writer Rebecca Solnit speaks about how disasters can make us step out of the isolation and fragmentation of our daily lives and give us a glimpse at how a society based on collectivity might look.
Vicente Rafael, The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines Duke U. Press, 2005
What do language and the act of translation have to do with the projection of imperial and military power? Vicente Rafael makes important connections and points to efforts to Americanize the English language in this nation's early years. He also discusses the politics of monolingualism, the notion of the melting pot, and the US military's use of interpreters in Iraq.
Gary Griggs, Introduction to California's Beaches and Coast UC Press, 2010
Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz
California has 1100 miles of coastline; most of it is eroding and all of it is changing in myriad ways. Gary Griggs has written a book about the coast's history, geology, climate, and resources. He also addresses the impact of rising sea levels and the history of oil extraction off California's coast.
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