Merchants' shouts, jostling strangers, aromas of fresh fish and flowers, plodding horses, and friendly chatter long filled the narrow, crowded streets of the European city. As they developed over many centuries, these spaces of commerce, communion, and commuting framed daily life. At its heyday in the 1800s, the European street was the place where social worlds connected and collided. Brian Ladd recounts a rich social and cultural history of the European city street, tracing its transformation from a lively scene of trade and crowds into a thoroughfare for high-speed transportation. Looking closely at four major cities--London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna--Ladd uncovers both the joys and the struggles of a past world. The story takes us up to the twentieth century, when the life of the street was transformed as wealthier citizens withdrew from the crowds to seek refuge in suburbs and automobiles. As demographics and technologies changed, so did the structure of cities and the design of streets, significantly shifting our relationships to them. In today's world of high-speed transportation and impersonal marketplaces, Ladd leads us to consider how we might draw on our history to once again build streets that encourage us to linger. By unearthing the vivid descriptions recorded by amused and outraged contemporaries, Ladd reveals the changing nature of city life, showing why streets matter and how they can contribute to public life.

Cars are the scourge of civilization, responsible for everything from suburban sprawl and urban decay to environmental devastation and rampant climate change--not to mention our slavish dependence on foreign oil from dubious sources abroad. Add the astonishing price in human lives that we pay for our automobility--some thirty million people were killed in car accidents during the twentieth century--plus the countless number of hours we waste in gridlock traffic commuting to work, running errands, picking up our kids, and searching for parking, and one can't help but ask: Haven't we had enough already? After a century behind the wheel, could we be reaching the end of the automotive age? From the Model T to the SUV, "Autophobia" reveals that our vexed relationship with the automobile is nothing new--in fact, debates over whether cars are forces of good or evil in our world have raged for over a century now, ever since the automobile was invented. According to Brian Ladd, this love and hate relationship we share with our cars is the defining quality of the automotive age. And "everyone" has an opinion about them, from the industry shills, oil barons, and radical libertarians who offer cars blithe paeans and deny their ill effects, to the technophobes, treehuggers, and killjoys who curse cars, ignoring the very real freedoms and benefits they provide us. Focusing in particular on our world's cities, and spanning settings as varied as belle epoque Paris, Nazi Germany, postwar London, Los Angeles, New York, and the smoggy Shanghai of today, Ladd explores this love and hate relationship throughout, acknowledging adherents and detractors of the automobile alike. Eisenhower, Hitler, Jan and Dean, J. G. Ballard, Ralph Nader, OPEC, and, of course, cars, all come into play in this wide-ranging but remarkably wry and pithy book. A dazzling display of erudition, "Autophobia" is cultural commentary at its most compelling, history at its most searching--and a surprising page-turner.

Berlin's traumatic past and vibrant present explored and explained in a guide to the culture, buildings and society of the city. Most people do not think of Berlin as a beautiful city, but it is filled with stunning sights, sounds and textures, all the more astonishing when the stories behind them are revealed. Today's Berlin is new and vibrant, but historyhas left its scars. A look in the right place is rewarded with glimpses of the glories of old Prussia as well as the abominations of Hitler's Third Reich and of the outer bulwark of the Soviet empire. Brian Ladd, a historian whohas been returning to Berlin for twenty-five years, pays homage to the familiar landmarks, but he also penetrates into obscure corners of the city and brings them alive with his shrewd and informed comment. He explains what the sights of Berlin have meant to Berliners who coped under kings and dictators, and who toiled, suffered and celebrated as their city was destroyed and rebuilt. This book invites you to share their passions as it draws you into the dynamic new capital that has risen from wreckage of post-war German history. BRIAN LADD is at the State University of New York at Albany. He has been a constant visitor to Berlin over a quarter of a century.

In the twenty years since its original publication, The Ghosts of Berlin has become a classic, an unparalleled guide to understanding the presence of history in our built environment, especially in a space as historically contested--and emotionally fraught--as Berlin. Brian Ladd examines the ongoing conflicts radiating from the remarkable fusion of architecture, history, and national identity in Berlin. Returning to the city frequently, Ladd continues to survey the urban landscape, traversing its ruins, contemplating its buildings and memorials, and carefully deconstructing the public debates and political controversies emerging from its past.

Cars are the scourge of civilization, responsible for everything from suburban sprawl and urban decay to environmental devastation and rampant climate change--not to mention our slavish dependence on foreign oil from dubious sources abroad. Add the astonishing price in human lives that we pay for our automobility--some thirty million people were killed in car accidents during the twentieth century--plus the countless number of hours we waste in gridlock traffic commuting to work, running errands, picking up our kids, and searching for parking, and one can't help but ask: Haven't we had enough already? After a century behind the wheel, could we be reaching the end of the automotive age? From the Model T to the SUV, "Autophobia" reveals that our vexed relationship with the automobile is nothing new--in fact, debates over whether cars are forces of good or evil in our world have raged for over a century now, ever since the automobile was invented. According to Brian Ladd, this love and hate relationship we share with our cars is the defining quality of the automotive age. And "everyone" has an opinion about them, from the industry shills, oil barons, and radical libertarians who offer cars blithe paeans and deny their ill effects, to the technophobes, treehuggers, and killjoys who curse cars, ignoring the very real freedoms and benefits they provide us. Focusing in particular on our world's cities, and spanning settings as varied as belle epoque Paris, Nazi Germany, postwar London, Los Angeles, New York, and the smoggy Shanghai of today, Ladd explores this love and hate relationship throughout, acknowledging adherents and detractors of the automobile alike. Eisenhower, Hitler, Jan and Dean, J. G. Ballard, Ralph Nader, OPEC, and, of course, cars, all come into play in this wide-ranging but remarkably wry and pithy book. A dazzling display of erudition, "Autophobia" is cultural commentary at its most compelling, history at its most searching--and a surprising page-turner.

Berlin is once again the official capital of a united Germany and, perhaps, the metaphorical capital of a new Europe. In accordance with its received status, a series of massive architectural projects has been initiated, intended to restore, reveal, and reinvent both the physical and the symbolic city of Berlin. But to build a future, one must first examine the past. And Berlin's past is particularly troubling. In this elegant and compelling work, Brian Ladd examines the ongoing conflicts radiating from the remarkable fusion of architecture, history, and national identity in Berlin. How is reunified Germany confronting a divisive and authoritarian past rendered tangible by the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag, Hitler's bunker - even the Brandenburg Gate? How can the rich culture of the past, the artistic and intellectual heritage of Berlin's avant garde, be rescued from the Cold War blight of Potsdamer Platz? And can the Neue Wache, Berlin's monumental remembrance of the horrors of tyranny and war, become the structural centerpiece and the symbolic guardian of this once and future capital? With keen insight and exacting scholarship, Ladd surveys the urban landscape, excavating its ruins, contemplating its buildings and memorials, and carefully deconstructing the public debates and political controversies emerging from its past. In the end, it becomes clear that the ghosts of Berlin may never, indeed should never, fade away.