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"A joyous book."--San Francisco Chronicle "Inventive and affectionate."--New York Times Book Review "Brilliantly disorients our native sense of place."--San Francisco Magazine "A richly textured graphic book that no electronic format can master yet, Infinite City features Rebecca Solnit as cultural and historical tour guide through the city she calls home."--Shelf Awareness "A fresh and intriguing spin on mapmaking."--Utne
Product Description
What makes a place? "Infinite City", Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area. Aided by artists, writers, cartographers, and twenty-two gorgeous color maps, each of which illuminates the city and its surroundings as experienced by different inhabitants, Solnit takes us on a tour that will forever change the way we think about place. She explores the area thematically - connecting, for example, Eadweard Muybridge's foundation of motion-picture technology with Alfred Hitchcock's filming of "Vertigo". Across an urban grid of just seven by seven miles, she finds seemingly unlimited landmarks and treasures - butterfly habitats, queer sites, murders, World War II shipyards, blues clubs, and Zen Buddhist centers. She roams the political terrain, both progressive and conservative, and details the cultural geographies of the Mission District, the culture wars of the Fillmore, the South of Market world being devoured by redevelopment, and much, much more. Breathtakingly original, this atlas of the imagination invites us to search out the layers of San Francisco that carry meaning for us - or to discover our own infinite city, be it Cleveland, Toulouse, or Shanghai. The contributors include: Cartographers: Ben Pease and Shizue Seigel; Designer: Lia Tjandra Artists: Sandow Birk, Mona Caron, Jaime Cortez, Hugh D'Andrade, Robert Dawson, Paz de la Calzada, Jim Herrington, Ira Nowinski, Alison Pebworth, Michael Rauner, Gent Sturgeon, and, Sunaura Taylor; Writers and researchers: Summer Brenner, Adriana Camarena, Chris Carlsson, Lisa Conrad, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Joshua Jelly-Shapiro, Paul La Farge, Genine Lentine, Stella Lochman, Aaron Shurin, Heather Smith, and Richard Walker; and Additional cartography: Darin Jensen; Robin Grossinger and Ruth Askevold, San Francisco Estuary Institute.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is beautiful. No question about it. The print is a delight and the maps are interesting and informative, as well as being works of art in their own right. What lets the book down is that this has been written by multiple authors with some pretty obvious and extreme biases. Some (the named author in particular) have written interesting, informative articles to go with the map in question. Others have written turgid diatribes that are boring and difficult to read. And one has to say, this entire book has a certain political perspective which might best be described as 'left-wing hippy academic', written by ivory tower students. No problem with that in principle, but it can wear a bit thin after a while. For example, there is lots of bemoaning the loss of manufacturing and blue collar workers and overt statements that modern industry is mostly a waste of time, instead of celebrating the birth and evolution of silicon valley (which is not mentioned once). It should be noted by the way, that whilst focussed on San Francisco, this does extend to the whole of Northern California for some topics. All in all, a bit of a curate's egg: good in parts, not in others. When it is good though, it's really good.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
20 reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful
"San Francisco contains many more than eight hundred thousand living maps"
19 Nov 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The beautiful "Infinite City" belongs on any list of essential San Francisco books. Rebecca Solnit and her collaborators have taken a core sample of the endless layers of San Francisco history and laid it out in twenty-two brilliantly imagined maps and eighteen essays exploring the city's history, geography, demography, biology, and myth. "Infinite City" is vast enough to encompass the Coliseum, Coronet and Alexandria theaters; the Pipevine swallowtail, Satyr anglewing, and Orange sulfur butterflies; the Yelamu, Aramai, and Urebure peoples; the "McKittrick Hotel", "Argosy Book Shop", and Ernie's; Josephine McCrackin, Carrie Stevens Walter, and Barbara Eastman; Bechtel, RoboteX, and Jeppesen; Jimbo's Bop City, Ann's 440, and the Six Gallery; Acme Export Packing, the Pacific Far East Line, and Triple A Machine Shop; and the Richmond Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The book itself is as lovingly designed as anything McSweeney's has published, proof that until we stop needing tactile pleasures, the screen will never replace the page.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A book "that locates what was never lost"
8 Mar 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's like reader-Mapquesting your way through San Francisco while leafing through the pages of "Infinite City." Rebecca Solnit has cleverly divided The City into wonderful stories based on people, events and history which happened in each of the many and varied districts. Whether you're an armchair traveler or lucky enough to actually be in San Francisco traipsing about you will thoroughly enjoy all the wonderfully detailed maps as well as eloquently written words which entice the reader to keep moving on to the next page and district. Hard to believe it's possible because San Francisco is so well documented but this book adds many new facts and bits of
interest guaranteed to hold your attention. It's an entertaining, delightful and informative read as well as terrific reference. "Infinite City" is a new gem on my bookshelf which is located 750 miles from San Francisco. Despite the distance, as Solnit wrote, "More than anything, this is a map home."
interest guaranteed to hold your attention. It's an entertaining, delightful and informative read as well as terrific reference. "Infinite City" is a new gem on my bookshelf which is located 750 miles from San Francisco. Despite the distance, as Solnit wrote, "More than anything, this is a map home."
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Wonderful history of SF
30 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback
Incredible book, an interesting view of San Francisco from a historical and sociological perspective. Please note though that this book is currently being offered by a seller for over $198. This book is being sold at the SFMOMA for $24.95. The seller's mark up is dishonest and offensive.
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