Book notes
Engaging our readers in preparing book notes
Our Book Notes section has short descriptions of books, papers and reports that we have prepared on all subjects relevant to urban issues. These are summaries rather than reviews. These go into the Book Notes online database that contains all Book Notes since our 1993 editions. It has facilities for searching by author, title, key word, city or country.
As an experiment, we are opening this to our readers so it can draw on a wider pool of knowledge. So we invite you to send us short summaries of new publications you have read that you found interesting – and relevant to urban issues. Authors may submit summaries too, but not promotional material. We welcome your submission on relevant publications published within the last two years. This includes English-language Book Notes and English summaries of publications in Spanish, French or Portuguese. You will be listed as the author of the summary.
If you would like to submit a Book Note, please search the database on this page to ensure that the publication has not already been covered. Please specify the title, author, publisher, year of publication, number of pages, and ISBN (if applicable). For the description, between one and six paragraphs is sufficient. Book Notes can be sent to Jenny.Peebles@iied.org
(For a searchable database of papers in Environment and Urbanization, go to http://eau.sagepub.com/)
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The City in the Making, by Marcel Hénaff, explores the making of the future city. In doing so it bridges the fields of anthropology, philosophy and urbanism, whilst providing a poetic read. It starts by looking at the ancient cities of the Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia.
Men, Masculinities and Disaster brings into view the place and role of masculinities, how they are socially constructed, and how they enter into all phases of the disaster cycle.
The Croatian government managed the transit of 650,000 migrants and refugees in late 2015 and early 2016 by coordinating the activities of an extensive number of international, national and local stakeholders to ensure quick and appropriate responses to these people’s needs.
As Indian cities grow, urban planners must ensure that basic infrastructure and public services are provided on a sustainable and equitable basis.
Emergence of community toilets as a public good was written by Sheela Patel together with a team from the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), Mahila Milan and SPARC.
It is impossible to read Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond and not be significantly affected.
The chapters in this volume were originally background papers for the World Economic and Social Survey 2011. Editors Vos and Alarcón believe that technology for a green economy is more of a matter of application than availability.
After reading The Spectacular Favela by Erika Robb Larkins, you will feel that you have lived in Rocinha, the Rio de Janeiro favela where Larkins herself lived for a total of 31 months between 2008 and 2014.
This book stems from Beate Ginzel’s PhD thesis on networks as modes of cooperation and action, along with their role and potential to bridge the gap between top-down strategies of the state and bottom-up initiatives of local communities.
Although the legal framework for gender equality exists in Vietnam, gender mainstreaming in climate change planning and action have not yet been fully realized and addressed by local actors.