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"Roll over Jane Jacobs: here's urban geography as it looks like through they eye of a Predator at 25,000 feet. A fundamental and very scary report from the global red zone." -- Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums
"A brilliant critique of the deadly embrace of military violence and contemporary urbanism. Steve Graham writes with immense power and lucidity, layering detail over detail and image over image to expose the shadows that are falling across cities around the world. This is not a dystopian future but the present, and Graham compels us to open our eyes to the dangers military urbanism poses to contemporary democracy." -- Derek Gregory, author of The Colonial Present.
"Cities Under Siege is a detailed and intense forensics of new urban frontiers, laboratories of the extreme where experiments with new urban conditions are currently being undertaken. In this fascinating new work Stephen Graham has created a novel concept of the city, looking at war as the limit condition of urbanity and calling for an alternative urban life yet to come." -- Eyal Weizman, director, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of Hollow Land. --Eyal Weizman, director, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of Hollow Land.
"Graham builds on the writings of Mike Davis and Naomi Klein who have attempted to expose the hidden corporate and military structures behind everyday life...superb...in its forensic rage, Cities under Siege is in some ways close to the spirit that provoked the Situationists to rebel against authoritarian Paris in 1968." ----Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times
"A rigorously researched, pioneering book packed with disturbing and at times astonishing information." ---- Anna Minton, Icon
"A brilliant critique of the deadly embrace of military violence and contemporary urbanism. Steve Graham writes with immense power and lucidity, layering detail over detail and image over image to expose the shadows that are falling across cities around the world. This is not a dystopian future but the present, and Graham compels us to open our eyes to the dangers military urbanism poses to contemporary democracy." -- Derek Gregory, author of The Colonial Present.
"Cities Under Siege is a detailed and intense forensics of new urban frontiers, laboratories of the extreme where experiments with new urban conditions are currently being undertaken. In this fascinating new work Stephen Graham has created a novel concept of the city, looking at war as the limit condition of urbanity and calling for an alternative urban life yet to come." -- Eyal Weizman, director, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of Hollow Land. --Eyal Weizman, director, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of Hollow Land.
"Graham builds on the writings of Mike Davis and Naomi Klein who have attempted to expose the hidden corporate and military structures behind everyday life...superb...in its forensic rage, Cities under Siege is in some ways close to the spirit that provoked the Situationists to rebel against authoritarian Paris in 1968." ----Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times
"A rigorously researched, pioneering book packed with disturbing and at times astonishing information." ---- Anna Minton, Icon
Product Description
Cities have become the new battleground of our increasingly urban world. From the slums of the global South to the wealthy financial centers of the West, "Cities Under Siege" traces how political violence now operates through the sites, spaces, infrastructures and symbols of the world's rapidly expanding metropolitan areas. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Stephen Graham shows how Western and Israeli militaries and security forces now perceive all urban terrain as a real or imagined conflict zone inhabited by lurking, shadow enemies, and urban inhabitants as targets that need to be continually tracked, scanned, controlled and targeted.He examines the transformation of Western militaries into high-tech urban counter-insurgency forces, the militarization and surveillance of March international borders, the labelling as 'terrorist' of democratic dissent and Politics/Geography protests, and the enacting of legislation suspending 'normal' civilian law. In doing so, he reveals how the New Military Urbanism now permeates the entire fabric of our urban lives, from subway and transport systems hardwired with high-tech 'command and control' systems and the infection of civilian policy with all-pervasive 'security' discourses; to the pervasive militarization of popular culture.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The degree to which violence not merely lurks beneath the surface of everyday life, but is an essential underpinning of it is what this book sets out to demonstrate. It shows the high degree to which state led violence (eg the police, military, secret seervice etc)is not merely peripheral to daily life, as perhaps we would like to think, but central to the way it is thought and organised. It compares and contrasts obviously violent places like Gaza and Baghdad with the less obviously violent such as London and New York, showing that the relative 'peace' of the latter is won at the expense of carnage in the former. This is a very important book written with the gusto and style of Mike Davis.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
An extraordinary exposé: A must-read for anyone interested in cities, security or militarization
14 Mar 2011
Format:Hardcover
'Cities Under Siege' is an extremely impressive exposé of how military doctrine and vague and all-pervasive 'security' concerns are starting to dominate urban life across the world. Addressing everything from 'homeland' security to military destruction of infrastructure, militarised urban video games to SUVs, and drones and robotic weapons to right-wing diatribes against cities, the book covers an amazing amount of ground. The book is informed by the latest theoretical and academic thinking. It uses this to illuminate a myriad of examples from across the world, from London's 'ring of steel' to G20 summits, counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and Israel to biofuels plantations in Indonesia . The book uses this extraordinary range to reveal many startling and poorly explored aspects of contemporary militarization. The book is a stark warning that 'security' industries are doing well out of urban paranoia, market fundamentalism and war mongering: another vision of our urbanizing world is desperately needed. 'Cities Under Siege' does a fantastic job of revealing what's at stake. It also opens up some ways forward for activism and resistance.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Massive in scope, impossibly frightening in its implications...and yet the seeds of resistance are here as well. From Iraq to NY, Gaza to London, this book looks at how war in all of its manifestations is increasingly becoming a part of everyday life through technology, rhetoric, policing and private security, advertising and still more. It ties this to the deeply inculcated binary of 'us' vs 'them' and increasing militarization of borders not only between countries, but within them in the separation of rich and poor, white from everyone else...And there's a whole section on robots. I won't say it's fun, but it is science fiction come to life. Cities Under Siege throws a lot at you, the language is rich and complex. While there is some repetition I think, it is a book absolutely worth reading. Though if you're like me you will feel a bit paranoid after.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An agonising read!
I was looking forward to reading this exposition on the 'new military urbanism' on the recommendation of a friend, but what I found was disappointing to say the least. Read more
Published 1 month ago by G. Phillips
snore
I was disappointed with this book, it had none of the ferocity and multidisciplinary approach which made Mike Davis's books on urban planning such a joy to read. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Honky Tonk Woman
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