Description:
Jaguaribe's book offers exciting and creative perspectives on the urban imaginaries and experiences of Rio de Janeiro. It illuminates how Rio de Janeiro's popular culture, artistic productions, social violence, and urban layout make it one of the foremost cityscapes in the world.
Review Quotes:
'This is a richly textured and fascinating examination of Rio, one of those iconic places that has functioned as a laboratory of alternative visions of what makes or breaks the good city' - John Urry, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University
"These beautifully written narratives of the multilayered physical and cultural histories of Rio de Janeiro brilliantly illuminate the "sedimentation of history" in one of the world's most complex urban cultures. Beatriz Jaguaribe reveals a keen sense of the play of the visual and material city as well as that of the present and the past. The book is a tour de force of urban cultural study and a rich inquiry into the multiple imaginaries and meanings of city culture." - Thomas Bender, Professor of History, New York University
"After the vogue of urban cultural studies in recent decades, only a few texts remain standing. Beatriz Jaguaribe's Rio de Janeiro clearly falls into this select group. She knows the impossibility of writing about the city without exhausting all modes of examination and she does this superbly well, drawing on literature, theory and history with a richness and nuance which is both inspired and penetrating." - Adrián Gorelik, urban and intellectual historian, University of Quilmes / Conicet, Argentina
"Jaguaribe (communications, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro) provides equally insightful analyses whether dealing with architecture and planning, photography, carnival and other celebrations, literary models of the flaneur, or film or other visualizations. In particular, the author shows herself at home in deconstructing elite modernist visions and revisions and in guiding readers through subaltern readings that emerge from the photograph, the crowd, the beach, and the favela while engaging Brazilian and other global scholarships. Hence, Jaguaribe complicates visions of the best-known icons of this city through history, social process, aesthetics, and political economics while challenging scholars in humanities and social sciences about how they must rethink urban imaginaries. A stimulating and important book for all academic audiences. Summing Up: Highly recommended" - G. W. McDonogh, Bryn Mawr College, CHOICE Reviews, May 2015