In this elegant and sensitive look at the milieu of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, James Gilbert examines the three utopias that were designed to bring order to the chaos of urban life: The World's Fair itself, George Pullman's community for his workers, and Dwight Moody's evangelical crusade. Gilbert draws upon a rich selection of fiction, collective biography, architecture, photographs, and souvenir books to show how these experiments each acted as a middle-class prescription for coming to terms with the new cultural diversity and competition resulting from the disruptive forces of technological change, commercial enterprise, and pluralism.
Mr. Gilbert's splendid book opens the door on a conflicted past, and provides an indispensable perspective on the troubled and troubling struggle we face today between old and new, unity and diversity.--Alan Trachtenberg, New York Times
Perfect Cities is a remarkable account of a struggle for cultural definition. Chronicling the byplay between cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity, unity and diversity, James Gilbert not only throws light on Chicago's past but also provides insight that can be applied to the cultural debates of our own time.--Adria Bernardi, Chicago Tribune
What Gilbert has done is to enable the reader to experience the grand utopian visions of the times, yet at the same time see the cantankerous reality that made the visions impossible.--Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

Every episode from six classic television sitcoms starring comedian Ronnie Barker. The collection includes 'Open All Hours' (Series 1-4), 'Porridge' (Series 1-3 plus the Christmas specials), 'Going Straight' (all six episodes), 'Clarence' (all six episodes), 'Seven of One' (all seven episodes) and 'The Magnificent Evans' (all seven episodes).

Thriller based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. Paddy Considine stars as Robert, a troubled young man in the throes of a difficult divorce who witnesses what he perceives to be scenes of marital bliss through a neighbour's kitchen window. When the woman, Jenny (Julia Stiles), catches him watching her, she invites him into her home and Robert becomes drawn into a relationship with her. When her ex-boyfriend Greg (James Gilbert) later goes missing, Robert becomes the obvious suspect, and a deadly game of jealousy and betrayal ensues.

Thriller based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. Paddy Considine stars as Robert, a troubled young man in the throes of a difficult divorce who witnesses what he perceives to be scenes of marital bliss through a neighbour's kitchen window. When the woman, Jenny (Julia Stiles), catches him watching her, she invites him into her home and Robert becomes drawn into a relationship with her. When her ex-boyfriend Greg (James Gilbert) later goes missing, Robert becomes the obvious suspect, and a deadly game of jealousy and betrayal ensues.

In 1965 The BBC harnessed the talents of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore for a new show Not Only But Also. Building scripts from improvised recordings (although ad-libs and corpsing remained irresistible features of the final recordings), the young partnership created their own style of comedy including the memorable Dagenham Dialogues of the cloth-capped Pete and Dud, and Peter Cook's magnificent old duffer Sir Arthur Greeb-Strebling. The series continued until 1970 and remains a seminal landmark in TV comedy.

In 1860, James Langdon, a southern boy from Macon, Georgia, is all set to celebrate his eighteenth birthday after graduating from school in New York. He has been groomed to handle the business end of his father's large cotton plantation. A deeply religious lad with an uncharacteristic aversion to slavery, James's father raised him to believe that unlike other negroes, the workers on Langdon Plantation were sharecroppers and not slaves. When James finds out that his father has deceived him, it sets up a conflict between the two men that takes a war to settle. When hostilities break out in 1861, he leaves home, ostensibly to serve the Southern cause. Instead, he embarks on his own mission to help slaves escape to Canada. Now considered to be a traitor and an outlaw by the South, danger is his constant companion; certain death awaits him should he be caught. Although he is powerless to go against his conscience, he is equally ridden with guilt for turning his back on his heritage. James knows that when the war ends, there will still be one last confrontation left for him: facing his father.