I have just returned from a trip to Ladakh and I could really relate to what Ms.Norberg talks about in the book.

Just a couple of side issues. It'd be good to know what exactly went wrong in Ladakh. Here are a people who for 2000 years had lived successfully by the rules of Buddhism. How & why did Buddhism fail these people in the face of global/western economic & cultural imperialism? Does the blame lie with Buddhism- it being too 'compassionate' and allowing a religion? Does the blame lie with the Ladakhis who probably were not as sincere Buddhists as they are made out to be?

After all if they really were such devout Buddhists, how come they fell to the greed that capitalism breeds?

Anyway, these are issues which could have been addressed in the book. Regardless, the book is excellent! A must read.

The authors do a nice job of weaving a story of hope at the end but I have concern for the future of these people. It helps me understand the decision the government of Bhutan has made to isolate themselves from western-style civilization.

Ouch.

However, New Century New Deal, made a great point. I could own some or most of this money and earn mutual fund rates of return. I am a believer and you will be if you read this book.

Nasar also makes a case for effective empirical research in urban design, a subject that is often ignored by urban designers. He provides designers with a useful set of tools to evaluate perceptions of specific environments and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each giving hints to developing appropriate design research strategies.

The book blends theory, empirical methods with practical advice. Any architect, landscape architect or urban designer interested in creating environments sensitive to the user will find this book useful

This book is one that will appeal to a broad spectrum of people - e.g., informed citizenry, city councils, city planners, urban designers, urban geographers, landscape architects, architects, as well as other academics/researchers. In fact, anyone interested in the visual form of our cities should read this book. It will give you a new perspective on how the visual form of the city impacts our enjoyment of cities. It also provides some clearly delineated methods for both assessing the image and modifying it. These techniques can be easily utilized by governmental or non-governmental agencies as well as interested citizens groups to better understand the evaluative image of their city, town, village or neighborhood and do something about it.

The author - Jack Nasar - has built upon the seminal work by Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City. However, whereas Lynch placed the emphasis of his study on two key aspects of the image - identity and structure - Nasar has taken on the more difficult task of assessing the meaning (or evaluative aspect) of the image. Nasar has been able to go beyond identity and structure to present a very convincing argument that people have a shared evaluative image (which is equated with the likability of the city's visual form) and has made clear the importance of that image for city design.

Through the analysis of the shared evaluative images of two cities - Knoxville and Chattanooga - the author has been able to identify many of the key elements of urban likability - i.e., naturalness, upkeep/civilities, openness, historical significance, and order. But he doesn't merely leave this an academic exercise, he attempts to show how we can shape the evaluative image. He presents possible guidelines for desired outcomes, such as creating a(n) pleasant appearance, exciting appearance, relaxing appearance, or high-status appearance. Furthermore, he suggests how the methods and guidelines can be easily linked into local planning processes and policy.

What a contribution this readable and well-researched book is to the field of urban studies. Nasar has not only answered the questions posed by Lynch, but has also shown us how important our shared evaluative image is to the quality of our everyday life and how we can, not only, take responsibility for the visual quality of our cities, but, more importantly, take action.

It's not easy to find a find a profound book in the area of policy analysis. The typical book, as a rule, is analytically sharp, but isn't usually notable for the insight it yields. Stone argues that it is wholly inadequate to ground decision-making for a wide range of policy issues and contexts, characterized by policy paradox, in conventional rationalist terms.

Like Alberto Guerreiro Ramos, Stone finds what she calls the "rationality project" or "calculative rationality" at once typically characteristic of the discipline of policy analysis and inadequate as means/method for analyzing a broad range of contemporary public policy issues. Her analysis suggests that this inadequacy becomes increasingly transparent, the closer one gets to the concrete challenges of implementation. While in some ways she doesn't go as far as Ramos in analyzing and articulating alternative political theoretical grounds for policy analysis, she is notably clear and remarkably articulate as far as she goes, revealing among other things, how the very movement from policy analysis at large toward implementation analysis in particular is likely to bring to the surface, what may otherwise remain hidden paradoxes of public policy.

In the face of the phenomenon of policy paradox, Stone grounds the enlargered policy analytic framework she offers in the specifically interactive context of political theory. Politics may unfold in higher or lower forms (differentiated by Ramos and others) and which Raghavan Iyer portrays diagramatically through interlocking ascending and descending triangles in his book Parapolitics. While Stone doesn't make this differentiation explicit, nevertheless, she compactly interweaves this kind of political understanding with an understanding of literary theory, drawing upon a deep understanding of the often covert role of metaphor in language. Throughout her text, she brings this kind of fundamental rhetorical insight to the surface and reveals the use of metaphor in processes of reasoning, notably including "calculative rationality." Stone's interweaving of insights from political theory and rhetorical theory in turn, suggests an analytic means for penetrating the obscurantist or covert "cognitive politics" that she, like Ramos, appears to believe, too often masquerade in semi-imperial fashion, as "rational" solutions to policy problems.

At bottom, Stone contrasts the "calculative rationality" which she finds characteristic of much of the policy analysis field with a broader notion of political reason that she grounds in the reciprocal interplay between facts and values within each individual and in such deliberation across communities of persons within the "polis." For Stone, the dignity amidst the messiness of politics and its creative import lies in the extent to which people may, through meaningful deliberation, constructively engage the pursuit of common and diverse ends and means in ways that constructively and concretely address particular problems of social significance.

The deliberation Stone conceives and observes accounts at once for individual notions of self-interest and some notion of a common good through which persons are bound into a larger community or political whole. For Stone, this whole is neither merely the laissiz-faire sum of its individual parts, nor some super-whole lording over individual parts, but rather -- as it was for Mary Parker Follett -- a creative "whole-a-making;" Stone takes her notion of community seriously as the foundational notion of political association, just as the exchange of individual self-interest constitutes for her the foundation of economic assocation. A reductive interpretation of human association in either this fundamental economic or this fundamental political direction is for Stone, inadmissable. Real social problems are confronted and political economic life is lived between these tensions. For Stone, it is through interactive processes of deliberation within and across communities that means are employed/discovered to reconcile or otherwise engage the phenomena of "policy paradox."

Policy Paradox is one of those handful of texts that is a particularly good investment in that it is worth reading and re-reading. It is a text in which you are likely to find something more with each re-read as you progress in your studies and/or professional work. Stone's book contains insightful material throughout, written simply. Highly recommended for anyone concerned with reciprocally bridging theory and practice in the policy analytic field and/or for those reflective practitioners concerned with more effectually addressing critical issues in the practical art and challenge of policy implementation.

A leader can take the advice in this book and use it to guide outward looking intelligence, assess the current state of issues (or do a triage on a surprise event), and then take concerted action.

At points, the book does suffer from the same weakness of Porter's books in that its desire for completeness, the text often has a "list-like" feel. But, on balance this book provides a framework full of tested tools to turn uncertainty into value.

Since most of the original edition was actually completed by 1990, it did not include the last decade of development in the fast-changing world of urban thinking. In this second edition, Mr. Garvin brings his study of the city into the twenty-first century, including examples, issues, and trends that did not exist at the time the first edition was written. More strikingly, however, he has also succeeded in reorganizing and restating his original material-sometimes subtly, and sometimes more extensively-in even more powerful and effective ways. But whether it is the almost completely new chapter on Retail Shopping, or the only mostly preserved gem from the first edition on Parks and Playgrounds, all of the clarity and vitality so characteristic of Mr. Garvin's writing are enhanced in this new edition. The new edition also features numerous new photographs-a particular treat to the many readers who especially appreciate the masterful way he has illustrated his points with visual images, virtually all taken by Mr. Garvin himself. (Since he is firmly committed to the principle that one actually has to experience and explore in person the environments one is studying, the author makes sure to use images that reflect his own personal vision, which fortunately for us is as artistically pleasing as it is intellectually informative.)

Whether one wishes to understand the history of American cities, learn the principles of real estate development, research the trends in government involvement in housing and urban renewal, get insight into why particular undertakings in particular cities worked or failed, or, most excitingly, sense the incredible complexity and interaction of all those forces (historical, political, architectural, legislative, sociological, economic, etc.) that determine and describe the life of the city, this book is a must-read-and one that is as enjoyable as it is informative and enlightening.

Garvin himself is uniquely qualified to write this book. For over thirty years he has taught Yale University's Introduction to the Study of the City course, while remaining busy as an architect, real estate developer and Director of Comprehensive Planning for the City of New York. After the publication of the original edition he became the Managing Director for Planning of New York's bid to host the 2012 Olympics (which was just selected as one of the finalists), and this year he was chosen to head up the complete rebuilding of the World Trade Center site after September 11 as the Vice President for Planning, Design and Construction of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

If you have any interest whatsoever in the history, design, or improvement of America's urban landscape, this is the book to get. As Paul Goldberger, the former architecture critic of the New York Times has written: "I will read it again and again, sometimes from front to back, sometimes from back to front, sometimes to page through at a random, sometimes to consult and help me with a particular problem. I guarantee dog-eared pages within a year."

Without question, if you are going to get only one book dealing with the problems and solutions of contemporary urban development, this MUST be it.

Kepel comes to an interesting and controversial conclusion. At a time when the US administration is making vast increases to the budget to fight the war on terror (against Muslim terrorists), Kepel writes that Islamism has seen its peak as a political movement and has been on the decline since the mid 1990's. He wrote in his conclusion:

"In spite of what many hasty commentators contended in its (September 11th) immediate aftermath, the attack on the United States was a desperate symbol of isolation, fragmentation, and decline of the Islamist movement, not a sign of its strength and irrepressible might."

My reaction to this conclusion (I read the conclusion before reading the entire book) was similar to what Walter Laqueur wrote in his article 'A Failure of Intelligence', published in The Atlantic Monthly - March 2002:

"However, the same conditions that gave birth to Islamism thirty years ago persist: economic stagnation or even negative growth, the unemployment of the young. So do resentment and free-floating rage. If Islamism is bankrupt, where is the ideology to replace it?"

These are good observations, but they miss the point of Kepel's book. Kepel does not cover what he thinks will replace Islamism. Laqueur's arguments make me wonder if he even read the entire book. (Laqueur also finishes with some ridiculous statements about a lack of Middle Eastern self-criticism, which makes it sound like Laqueur has digested the ideas of the famous orientalist Bernard Lewis more than anything Kepel wrote.) Kepel is not making a sweeping statement about Islam and the West - that the tension is over and everyone will live happily ever after. Kepel realizes there will be violence in the name of Jihad. For example, his conclusion also stated:

"This does not mean that we shall not see other outbursts of terrorism that claim the mantle of jihad. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular will be ripe for more violence."

Kepel's book is more informed and specific than Laqueur acknowledges. It is about specific movements within the Islamic world, started by theorists such as Mawdudi from Pakistan or Qutb from Egypt. These movements seemed to be ready to take over the Middle East as recent as five years ago. Islamist movements succeeded in Iran and Afganistan, and in various other places in the Middle East. But since then the theories behind Islamism have not been as accepted. This is due to complex reasons, such as the increased power of the middle class in the various countries, which Kepel covers in detail.

If there is a fault in Kepel's 'Jihad', it is that the text takes a while to get used to, since it was originally written in French. I found myself reading some paragraphs two or three times over - especially in the first half. I'm not sure if I got used to the text in the second half, or the writing improved. Also, he could have spent some pages on a definition of Islamism - what theorists such as Mawdudi and Qutb wanted. You would have to get that research from another book, such as Qutb's 'Milestones'.

I would have liked the chapters on the Documentary Idea and Writing the Documentary to be longer. Personally, I would have benefited more from extending the discussions here. Also the author tends to drive the book along at a fiercely anecdotal rate which is great if you can imagine yourself in the author's shoes, but may not suit everyone's style.

Overall I found this to be a most useful manual and certainly find myself returning to it for advice. What better recommendation can I offer?

In this book, Barry Hampe provides great advice, helpful concepts, and breaks down the documentary process into digestable servings. The book is divided into four sections: 1. An introduction to the concepts and guidelines of the Documentary genre 2. Preproduction 3. Production 4. Postproduction. Barry Hampe fills in the pages with experience, knowledge, and writes in a manner combining the ideas he discusses with pithy examples and stories which he uses to drive his points home. The book has a generous layout, placing information thoughtfully and easily into the reader. Included in the book is a wonderful filmography (including refrence info on where to find and order the documentaries listed), a well rounded bibliography, and even directions to join the International Documentary Association.

I used this book as my introduction to documentary production, because though it is based on Hampe's work specifically with behavioral documentary, the information is easily transferable to any documentary/reality video project. The book stresses concepts in creating a form of reality through visual medium, called verisimilitude, and Barry Hampe demonstrates very carefully the indepth process in which an audience recieves the final cut out of what was originially a simple idea. If Barry Hampe can communicate his ideas so clearly in writing this book, I imagine his documentaries must be stunning.