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The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots. In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies." .
Price: $5.44
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Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
A manifesto by America's most controversial and celebrated town planners, proposing an alternative model for community design. There is a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and to replace the automobile-based settlement patterns of the past fifty years with a return to more traditional planning principles. This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day. Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions. .
Price: $10.62
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Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (New Society Publishers)
The twentieth century saw unprecedented growth in population, energy consumption, and food production As the population shifted from rural to urban, the impact of humans on the environment increased dramatically The twenty-first century ushered in an era of declines, in a number of crucial parameters: - Global oil, natural gas, and coal extraction
- Yearly grain harvests
- Climate stability
- Population
- Economic growth
- Fresh water
- Minerals and ores, such as copper and platinum
To adapt to this profoundly different world, we must begin now to make radical changes to our attitudes, behaviors, and expectations. Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological, and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates our new limits. This latest book from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on the most important aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time. A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book tells how we might make the transition from the Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction, while preserving the best of our collective achievements. A must-read for individuals, business leaders, and policymakers who are serious about effecting real change. Richard Heinberg is a journalist, lecturer, and the author of seven books, including The Party's Over, Powerdown, and The Oil Depletion Protocol. He is one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators. .
Price: $14.48
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How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
In How Should We Then Live? Francis Schaeffer analyzed the reasons for modern society's state of affairs and presented the only viable alternative: living by the Christian ethic, acceptance of God's revelation, and total affirmation of the Bible's truth, morals, values and meaning. This edition commemorates the 50th anniversary of L'Abri Fellowship and includes a new foreword..
Price: $11.90
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The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth in Bush's America
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Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
For half a century, the American Mafia outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outgunned the FBI and other police agencies, wreaking unparalleled damages to America’s social fabric and business enterprises while emerging as the nation’s most formidable crime empire. The vanguard of this criminal juggernaut is still led by the Mafia’s most potent and largest borgatas: New York’s Five Families. Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York’s premier dons from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. This definitive history brings the reader right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law-enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime. The paperback has been revised and updated, with a new epilogue focusing on the trial of the notorious “Mafia Cops.” .
Price: $10.59
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Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline
Theodore Dalrymple's new book of essays follows on the extraordinary success of his earlier collections, Life at the Bottom and Our Culture, What's Left of It. No social critic today is more adept and incisive in exploring the state of our culture and the ideas that are changing our ways of life. In Not with a Bang But a Whimper, he takes the measure of our cultural decline, with special attention to Britain-its bureaucratic muddle, oppressive welfare mentality, and aimless youth-all pursued in the name of democracy and freedom. He shows how terrorism and the growing numbers of Muslim minorities have changed our public life. Also here are Mr. Dalrymple's trenchant observations on artists and ideologues, and on the questionable treatment of criminals and the mentally disturbed, his area of medical interest..
Price: $17.16
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CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
A debut collection of short fiction includes the title story, the award-winning "Bounty" and "The 400-Pound CEO," "The Wavemaker Falters," and others. Reprint. NYT. .
Price: $7.66
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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Modern Library Classics)
Gibbon’s masterpiece, which narrates the history of the Roman Empire from the second century a.d. to its collapse in the west in the fifth century and in the east in the fifteenth century, is widely considered the greatest work of history ever written. This abridgment retains the full scope of the original, but in a compass equivalent to a long novel. Casual readers now have access to the full sweep of Gibbon’s narrative, while instructors and students have a volume that can be read in a single term. This unique edition emphasizes elements ignored in all other abridgments—in particular the role of religion in the empire and the rise of Islam..
Price: $9.42
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