Bøger af Dawn Day Biehler

"Telling a multispecies history of Central Park from the 1850s until the 1970s, Dawn Day Biehler illuminates the vibrant lives of humans and animals in the park, showcasing stories of decorative sheep, nesting swans, capering monkeys, and escaped bison as well as New Yorkers' attempts to reconfigure their relationships to the land and animals and claim spaces for recreation and leisure. Ultimately, Biehler shows how Central Park has always been a place where power and belonging have been contested by animals and humans alike"--

From tenements to alleyways to latrines, twentieth-century American cities created spaces where pests flourished and people struggled for healthy living conditions. In Pests in the City, Dawn Day Biehler argues that the urban ecologies that supported pests were shaped not only by the physical features of cities but also by social inequalities, housing policies, and ideas about domestic space.Community activists and social reformers strived to control pests in cities such as Washington, DC, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Milwaukee, but such efforts fell short when authorities blamed families and neighborhood culture for infestations rather than attacking racial segregation or urban disinvestment. Pest-control campaigns tended to target public or private spaces, but pests and pesticides moved readily across the porous boundaries between homes and neighborhoods.This story of flies, bedbugs, cockroaches, and rats reveals that such creatures thrived on lax code enforcement and the marginalization of the poor, immigrants, and people of color. As Biehler shows, urban pests have remained a persistent problem at the intersection of public health, politics, and environmental justice, even amid promises of modernity and sustainability in American cities.Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9PFxLY7K4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw