The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

Name: The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power
Author: Deirdre Mask
ISBN: 9781782833789

Deirdre Mask

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Deirdre Mask

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#3256 of 3,809 books · #183 in General

Shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction (2020).

The Address Book was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2021, shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Award 2020, and was a TIME Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020. When most people think about street addresses they think of parcel deliveries, or visitors finding their way. But who numbered the first house, and where, and why? What can addresses tell us about who we are and how we live together? Deirdre Mask looks at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr., how ancient Romans found their way, and why Bobby Sands is memorialised in Tehran. She explores why it matters if, like millions of people today, you don't have an address. From cholera epidemics to tax hungry monarchs, Mask discovers the different ways street names are created, celebrated, and in some cases, banned. Full of eye-opening facts, fascinating people and hidden history, this book shows how addresses are about identity, class and race. But most of all they are about power: the power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn't, and why.

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