Download The Address Book by Deirdre Mask PDF

2020
Title The Address Book by Deirdre Mask
Authors
Genres Social & Cultural History
Publisher Profile Books
ISBN 9781781259009
An exuberant work of popular history: the story of how streets got their names and houses their numbers, and why something as seemingly mundane as an address can save lives or enforce power. When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won't get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. Addresses arose out of a grand Enlightenment project to name and number the streets, but they are also a way for people to be identified and tracked by those in power. As Deirdre Mask explains, the practice of numbering houses was popularized in eighteenth-century Vienna by Maria Theresa, leader of the Hapsburg Empire, to tax her subjects and draft them into her military. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class, causing them to be a shorthand for snobbery or discrimination. In this wide-ranging and remarkable book, Mask looks at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr., the wayfinding means of ancient Romans, how Nazis haunt the streets of modern Germany, and why numbered streets dominate in America but not in Europe. The flipside of having an address is not having one, and we see what that means for millions of people today, including those who live in the slums of Kolkata, on the streets of London, or in post-earthquake Haiti. Filled with fascinating people and histories, The Address Book illuminates the complex and sometimes hidden stories behind street names and their power to name,to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn't-and why.
More Books You May Like
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1)
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1)
George R. R. Martin

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last ...

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris
Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris
Heather Morris

Her beauty saved her life and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Con...

The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr
The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr

Across the 30,000 or so varieties of Christianity, believers universally love Jesus. They have no trouble accepting his ...

The Ethical Slut
The Ethical Slut
Janet W. Hardy

The classic guide to love, sex, and intimacy beyond the limits of conventional monogamy has been fully updated to reflec...

Grit by Angela Duckworth
Grit by Angela Duckworth
Angela Duckworth

"In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educator...