By 1900 the British had undertaken various types of urban planning in their colonial territories; but the early twentieth century brought new ideas and the birth of the modern planning movement. In India these new planning ideas inspired several specialized reports after 1900; most of which drew explicitly on British; or occasionally German; ideas. The most complete of these studies was the Richards Report on Calcutta; prepared for the Calcutta Improvement Trust and published in 1914.Its major concerns included the building and widening of roads; slum clearance and improvement; legislation; and suburban planning. As background; it included written and visual documentation of living conditions; through charts; photographs; and maps. Richards emphasized that conditions in Calcutta differed greatly from those in urban Britain; and made some allowance in that regard. In general; however; his report exemplifies the attempt by British planners; along with Indian elites; to impose their vision on colonial cities.Richardsrsquo; report was well-received by leading British planners of the day. A notice in Garden Cities and Town Planning claimed that it was "the most complete report on town conditions and possibilities which has yet been issued". While the immediate impact of the report in Calcutta is moot - Richards was highly critical of the past practices of local officials; and his views were unpopular with his superiors - the Richards Reports remains a crucial insight into both the development of modern town planning and the colonial period in India.
#1761626 in eBooks 1997-09-11 1997-09-11File Name: B00MU1FSVS
Review
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Thoughtful pieces with far reaching consequencesBy Hugh JapeThis an interesting book; suitable for students and researchers with a broad range of media interests - whether it be in relation to fine arts; mass communication; or any other area of the field. First; Ill give an indication of what this book is not. Its probably not effective to use this book as an encylopedia; or as an introduction to media studies. For that; I suggest trying New Media: A Critical Introduction (but maybe wait to see if a paperback version of the 2nd edition is released) or Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks (KeyWorks in Cultural Studies) or The New Media Reader if you want a good selection of key works that have influenced the often overlapping fields of media and cultural studies (see moreso the 2nd half of that book for stuff on media). I think people who would most benefit from the book under review are people who have some familiarity with the sorts of ideas that are discussed in these three books. A careful reader with any experience reading from the Humanities should be alright; though.What this book does offer the reader is a careful interrogation of concepts that are crucial to the contemporary vocabulary of media studies. I will not evaluate the individual pieces as I think its a bit too arduous if I try to do it well; and unfair to the authors if I do a shoddy job. Instead; Ill simply iterate what the terms are and who deals with them.Section 1: AestheticsArt - Johanna DruckerBody - Bernadette WegensteinImage - WJT MithcellMateriality - Bill BrownMemory - Bernard StieglerSenses - Caroline JonesTime and Space - Mitchell HansenSection 2: TechnologyBiomedia - Eugene ThackerCommunication - Bruce ClarkeCybernetics - Katherine HaylesInformation - Bruce ClarkeNew Media - Mark HansenHardware/Software/Wetware - Geoffrey Winthrop-YoungTechnology - John JohnstonSection 3: SocietyExchange - David GraeberLanguage - Cary WolfeLaw - Peter GoodrichMass Media - John Durham PetersNetworks - Alexander GallowaySystems - David WellberyWriting - Lydia LiuI recommend this book for people wanting to keep abreast/ahead of the current debates about the relations between embodiment; technology and society.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Extra DetailsBy DSObtuse and academic--but useful as a rhetorical reference.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Jimmy Barkahgreat!
