Books about Squatter from Amazon.com

In the middle of the night they quickly build houses and seize land before the police destroy their fragile homes. They're squatters--families that risk the wrath of governments and property owners by building dwellings on land they don't own--and they represent one out of every ten people on the planet.

Investigative journalist Robert Neuwirth lived among squatter communities from Rio to Bombay to Nairobi to Istanbul to give us an impassioned, inside view of squatter life and a glimpse into the urban future. He met people in Nairobi who built homes with their bare hands, Turkish families who plot land invasions, and children in Rio whose parents justify outfoxing the authorities as the only path to a better life. And he shows us that in cities like Rio, squatter settlements have become decent places to live for formerly landless people. Tracing the notion of private property from the enclosure movement in Europe to the settlement of the U.S., Neuwirth shows how squatting rights may actually be seen as more "natural" than the current laws practiced in the U.S.

In almost every country of the developing world, the most active builders are squatters, creating complex local economies with high rises, shopping strips, banks, and self-government. As they invent new social structures, Neuwirth argues, squatters are at the forefront of the worldwide movement to develop new visions of what constitutes property and community..
Price: $22.07 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Crimes against Nature reveals the hidden history behind three of the nation's first parklands: the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Focusing on conservation's impact on local inhabitants, Karl Jacoby traces the effect of criminalizing such traditional practices as hunting, fishing, foraging, and timber cutting in the newly created parks. Jacoby reassesses the nature of these "crimes" and provides a rich portrait of rural people and their relationship with the natural world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries..
Price: $23.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Squatter and the Don, originally published in San Francisco in 1885, is the first fictional narrative written and published in English from the perspective of the conquered Mexican population that, despite being granted the full rights of citizenship under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, was, by 1860, a subordinated and marginalized national minority..
Price: $12.71 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book is a survey of small houses from early settler cabins to the tiny house movement of today. The houses include frontier shelters, squatter houses, Cracker houses, farmhouses, bandboxes, shotguns, bungalows, and tiny houses. The book shows how these houses were built and served the special needs of their owner-builders. Each chapter starts by showing the house in the context of its construction, the kind of resources that were available to its owners, and how their construction was shaped by both their purpose and historical situation. Many of the insights of these home-builders can be used in small house construction today. These insights include the use of decks and outdoor spaces, separation of spaces, and simple framing techniques that are visible in the construction models. These models help readers get a feel for what it might be like to live in a small space and ways traditional builders maximized the efficiency and comfort of their homes. The book s CD includes a model of every house in the book as well as contextual plans and elevations, three-dimensional details of the structure, and the layout of each house. Readers can explore the house s construction, deconstruct its pieces, modify the spaces, and adapt them to test their own ideas. All our books are written as graphic narratives in a comic style. Every book mixes layers of visual information with construction models, short video tours, and tutorials on how the models were built and organized..
Price: $29.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Contents

Introduction
Chapter One: Homes Not Jails:The Secret Success of a Squatting Movement to House the Homeless
Chapter Two: Battling the Banana Baron: Rural Hondurans Fight Chiquita Brands
Chapter Three: Arguments to Squat By: The Challenge to Property
Chapter Four: Direct Action and the Law
Chapter Five: Repression, Violent Resistance, and Reform
Chapter Six: Tactics and Mobilization: The Primacy of Power
Conclusion: The Future of Land and Housing Movements

An Excerpt from No Trespassing! By Anders Corr

Draft Version: Please do not quote

Chapter 1

Homes Not Jails:

The Secret Success of a Squatting Movement to House the Homeless

Benjamin volunteered to open the vacant building on Shotwell and 22nd, and said I could follow. He had squatted it before the landlord kicked him out, but now lived in a sleazy downtown hotel. We walked up to the alley door, and just as Benjamin produced his crowbar, a very large guy (much smaller than Benjamin and much bigger than me) walked up to his own door just a few feet away. Benjamin thought quick and pretended legitimacy by knocking. "Whatcha knockin for?" the neighbor asked. His eyes narrowed. "Nobody lives there."

Benjamin has broken into hundreds of buildings with Homes Not Jails and knew when to lead a tactical retreat. But undaunted, he circled the building and easily lifted his seven-foot frame over a fence and into the backyard. From my cowardly vantage I could see a weak flashlight flickering at us from a window in the second story of the next-door flat. Was it the neighbor who confronted us? Did he have a gun? Again, Benjamin either failed to notice the flashlight-wielding neighbor or cared little. He climbed the back stairs, jimmied the door, walked out the alley and returned with two homeless people who needed a place to stay. After letting the two into the squat, Benjamin promised to help change the lock if they stayed for a week. Afterwards I skipped to keep pace as, with a crowbar dangling from his pinkie, Benjamin lumbered about the neighborhood in search of more squats.

Homelessness and the Growth of U.S. Squatting

Homes Not Jails began with the wave of other homeless activist gro.
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Reelfoot Lake has been a hunting and fishing paradise from the time of its creation in 1812, when the New Madrid earthquake caused the Mississippi River to flow backward into low-lying lands. Situated in the northwestern corner of the state of Tennessee, it attracted westward-moving pioneers, enticing some to settle permanently on its shores. Threatened in 1908 with the loss of their homes and livelihoods to aggressive, outsider capitalists, rural folk whose families had lived for generations on the bountiful lake donned hoods and gowns and engaged in "night riding," spreading mayhem and death throughout the region as they sought vigilante justice. They had come to regard the lake as their own, by "squatters' rights," but now a group of entrepreneurs from St. Louis had bought the titles to the land beneath the shallow lake and were laying legal claim to Reelfoot in its entirety. People were hanged, beaten, and threatened and property destroyed before the state militia finally quelled the uprising. A compromise that made the lake public property did not entirely heal the wounds which continue to this day. Paul Vanderwood reconstructs these harrowing events from newspapers and other accounts of the time. He also obtained personal interviews with participants and family members who earlier had remained mum, still fearing prosecution. The Journal of American History declares his book "the complete and authentic treatment" of the horrific dispute and its troubled aftermath..
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The gunshots came in rapid succession There were three of them, followed by screeching tyres and a screaming engine. In a matter of seconds I recalled the conversation I'd had with Mary. She'd been right after all. 'You'll be fine for a few days,' she'd said, 'but after that they'll turn on you. Our cultures are too different. You won't live through it, not just because of the cultural differences, but because of the common crime. Find a home here in the suburbs where you belong.' The three gunshots had been my first, but perhaps for those who'd lived in these streets for years they were only three gunshots among countless others. Who knows? Perhaps three a week, maybe even three a night? Either way, I'd have to get used to them - or leave. Ignoring advice from his white friends, and to the bemusement of his black friends, Steven Otter throws caution to the wind and moves into Khayelitsha, a black township outside Cape Town. The story of his experiences in the uneven spread of shacks and informal housing that are home to more than a million people provides an unusual perspective on and insight into a predominantly Xhosa community and their reaction to an umlungu in their midst.Steven comes to understand his identity as a South African, the true meaning of community and brotherhood, and that some tsotsis are not what they seem. He finds that his preconceived notions of culture and race are called into question and that ubuntu, community and a sense of humour may still thrive alongside poverty and crime..
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The acknowledged master of psychological suspense and heart-stopping terror, New York Times bestselling author John Saul now invites you to descend to chilling new depths of darkness--and discover a secret, savage world that exists beneath our very feet.

The promising future of New York City college student Jeff Converse has suddenly been shattered by a nightmarish turn of events. Falsely convicted of a brutal crime, Jeff sees his life vanishing before his eyes. But someone has other plans for Jeff, in a far deadlier place than any penitentiary. He finds himself beneath the teeming streets of Manhattan, in a hidden landscape of twisting tunnels and forgotten subterranean chambers. Here, an invisible population of the homeless, the desperate, and the mad has carved out its own shadow society.

But they are not alone. The pitch-dark tunnels and abandoned subway stations are haunted by the unmistakable sounds of predators in search of game. Someone has made this forsaken civilization beneath the city a private killing ground . . . and the hunt is on.

Trapped in a treacherous underground maze, cut off at every turn by ragged gangs of sinister "gamekeepers," and stalked relentlessly by unseen hunters, Jeff faces overwhelming odds in the race to reach salvation and elude capture. With no weapon but his wits, and an unimaginable threat lurking around every dark corner, Jeff must somehow move heaven and earth to escape from a living hell.

The Manhattan Hunt Club is the most thrilling and suspenseful novel yet from the ingenious mind of John Saul..
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