A Town Without Steel or Understanding Globalisation

A Town Without Steel: Envisioning Homestead

Author: Judith Schachter Modell

In 1986, with little warning, the USX Homestead Works closed. Thousands of workers who depended on steel to survive were left without work. A Town Without Steel looks at the people of Homestead as they reinvent their views of household and work and place in this world. The book details the modifications and revisions of domestic strategies in a public crisis. In some ways unique, and in some ways typical of American industrial towns, the plight of Homestead sheds light on social, cultural, and political developments of the late twentieth century.

In this anthropological and photographic account of a town facing the crisis of deindustrialization, A Town Without Steel focuses on families. Reminiscent of Margaret Byington and Lewis Hine’s approach in Homestead, Charlee Brodsky’s photographs document the visual dimension of change in Homestead. The mill that dominated the landscape transformed to a vast, empty lot; a crowded commercial street turns into a ghost town; and an abundance of well-kept homes become an abandoned street of houses for sale. The individual narratives and family snapshots, Modell’s interpretations, and Brodsky’s photographs all evoke the tragedy and the resilience of a town whose primary source of self-identification no longer exists.

New interesting textbook: James K Polk or The Looming Tower

Understanding Globalisation

Author: Tony Schirato

Globalization is a highly debated term, and struggles over its meaning are played out in a variety of ways, from academe and the media to the streets of Seattle, Melbourne and Genoa.

This book provides a welcome introduction to the discourses, practices and technologies that have been grouped together under that term. It outlines the historical contexts of globalization, and addresses the politics of naming that are so central to the reproduction of the narratives and patterns of globalization.

The authors examine specific sites that are being transformed by globalization such as capitalism, state governments, the media and cultural identity, and explore the notion of a post-globalization world.

This will be a valuable book to undergraduate and MA students on communication, media, cultural studies, sociology, politics and development courses.

Table of Contents:

The Idea of Globalization Globalization
History and Ideology Technology, Informationalism and Space//Time Global Capitalism The State and Sovereignty The Global Subject and Culture The Public Sphere and the Media Globalization, Counter-memory, Practice