Historical Dictionary of Greater Johannesburg

Historical Dictionary of Greater Johannesburg
Author: Naomi Musiker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 550
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN:

In just over a century of existence, Johannesburg, the "City of Gold," has played a vital role in the development of South Africa. Today, it is the center of Gauteng, the province which serves as the economic heart of the entire region. The city continues to exert influence over the whole of the African sub-continent. Johannesburg's evolution in the last two decades provide important insights into the transformation of South Africa as a whole. The Dictionary is of great value to readers who wish to understand events that shaped South Africa in the successive eras of gold discovery, British colonization, Nationalist Party apartheid legislation, and transformation under the aegis of the African National Congress. The Musikers make an important departure from previous historical surveys in that they include information on the role of the original indigenous inhabitants of South Africa who occupied the area of the future city long before the first white settlers, and who, through their intensive labor on the gold mines, played a decisive role in the progress of Johannesburg. The present volume, besides covering the economic and political history of Johannesburg, also deals with cultural aspects of the city including architecture, art, music, and theatre, which provide a fascinating multi-cultural portrait of the cosmopolitan city.

Historical Dictionary of South Africa

Historical Dictionary of South Africa
Author: Christopher Saunders
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1538130262

As the most influential and powerful country on the entire continent of Africa, an understanding of South Africa’s past and its present trends is crucial in appreciating where South Africans are going to, and from where they have come. South Africa changed dramatically in 1994 when apartheid was dismantled, and it became a democratic state. Since 2000, when the previous edition appeared, further big changes occurred, with the rise of new political leaders and of a new black middle class. There were also serious problems in governance, in public health, and the economy, but with a remarkable popular resilience too. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of South Africa contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 600 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about South Africa.

Historical Dictionary of Brussels

Historical Dictionary of Brussels
Author: Paul F. State
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2015-04-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0810879212

Brussels has become the “capital” of Europe, serving as the headquarters for key regional and international agencies, including the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, UN organizations, multinational businesses, lobbying firms, governmental groups, and nongovernmental organizations. Its status as a diplomatic, political, and economic center assumes ever greater importance as the EU grows in depth and breadth. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Brussels covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 900 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Brussels.

Historical Dictionary of Berlin

Historical Dictionary of Berlin
Author: Ulrike Zitzlsperger
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 153812422X

After World War II Berlin became one of the playgrounds of the Cold War; the Berlin Wall made the division between East and West, between ‘capitalism’ and ‘communism’ in 1961 highly visible, though it did remove Berlin from front-line politics. East and West Berlin had turned into shop-windows of ideologies – West Berlin representing the lure of a market economy, East Berlin the promise of socialism. It is, then, fitting that the fall of the Wall in 1989 awarded Berlin such a prominent role. It was here that the development after Reunification of East and West became a closely observed event – and, well beyond Germany, Berlin appeared to represent fundamental developments throughout Europe at the time. Today, Berlin is the capital of reunified Germany and therefore one of the key political players in the European Union (EU) and it’s now a desirable destination for young entrepreneurs. The Historical Dictionary of Berlin contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, places, institutions, and events. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Berlin.

Historical Dictionary of Vienna

Historical Dictionary of Vienna
Author: Peter Csendes
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780810835627

Vienna can boast of a great deal of culture and history despite its relatively small size. Indeed, the city has a long and rich history. From the medieval feudal town to the twentieth-century bastion of music, theater, and culture, Vienna has weathered changes for the good and the ill. Vienna's rich history has not gone unnoticed by scholars, both Austrians and others. Peter Csendes's Historical Dictionary of Vienna is an important contribution to the literature on Vienna. Csendes provides a unique resource for students or visitors of Vienna. Special articles explain the way of living, the historical development of the political situation, legal system, urban functions, economic structures, cultural institutions, and events. The Dictionary provides a visitor with a perspective wholly different from that of the usual guide book. For the scholar, it describes Vienna as a manifesto for urban development, with all the changes, and their consequences. Of interest to scholars and travelers, the Dictionary is a true vade mecum of Vienna's past, present, and future, with entries focusing on everything from politics, economics, society, and culture to people, places and events. A detailed bibliography follows the work, as do several appendixes of important people and statistical tables.

Twilight People

Twilight People
Author: David Houze
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2006-05-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520931742

David Houze was twenty-six and living in a single room occupancy hotel in Atlanta when he discovered that three little girls in an old photo he'd seen years earlier were actually his sisters. The girls had been left behind in South Africa when Houze and his mother fled the country in 1966, at the height of apartheid, to start a new life in Meridian, Mississippi, with Houze's American father. This revelation triggers a journey of self-discovery and reconnection that ranges from the shores of South Africa to the dirt roads of Mississippi—and back. Gripping, vivid, and poignant, this deeply personal narrative uses the unraveling mystery of Houze's family and his quest for identity as a prism through which to view the tumultuous events of the civil rights movement in Mississippi and the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa. Twilight People is a stirring memoir that grapples with issues of family, love, abandonment, and ultimately, forgiveness and reconciliation. It is also a spellbinding detective story—steeped in racial politics and the troubled history of two continents—of one man's search for the truth behind the enigmas of his, and his mother's, lives.

Historical Dictionary of Tokyo

Historical Dictionary of Tokyo
Author: Roman Cybriwsky
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2011-02-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 081087489X

Tokyo is Japan's largest city and its capital. It is also one of the largest cities in the world and a major center of global economic influence. The origins of human settlement in what is today Tokyo are lost in prehistory. The city started out quite modestly as a small castle town of Edo in 1457, then the center of the Tokugawa shogunate from 1603-1868, the rapidly modernizing and Westernizing capital of the nation during the Meiji Period (1868-1912), and the capital of a prosperous nation and growing empire thereafter. Tokyo was utterly devastated during World War II, but this was not the first time Tokyo had to start seemingly from new. Due to many fires and earthquakes, the city has constantly rebuilt itself and today it outdoes all its previous emanations by far. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Tokyo is a much-needed reference source on the city. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries on people, places, events, and other terminology about the city of Tokyo. This book is a must for anyone interested in Japan and Tokyo.

Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto

Historical Dictionary of Osaka and Kyoto
Author: Ian Martin Röpke
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780810836228

Osaka and Kyoto are often overshadowed in the Western imagination by Tokyo's teeming sea of civilization. Nevertheless, Osaka and Kyoto are the setting for most of Japan's important historical events. From the 5th century B.C.E. to the 17th century, the Osaka-Kyoto region (known as the Kansai today) was the center of Japan politically, culturally, and economically. Today, the region continues to play a leading role in the traditional arts as well as serving as the second most important economic area in the country. This volume begins to address a painful lack of information about Osaka and Kyoto in English. Its dictionary-style entries place concise and important information at researchers' and scholars' fingertips. The introductions and chronologies contribute to the usefulness of this ready-reference, and the bibliography points students of Osaka and Kyoto to starting points for further research.

From Understanding to Action

From Understanding to Action
Author: Marco Keiner
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1402029217

Hans van Ginkel Rector, United Nations University The challenges of the world's future are linked to the growing share of the global population that will reside in urban areas. UN projections indicate that by 2030 the world's urban population share will rise to 60 percent. Of the two billion added to the global population, 99 percent will be added to the urban areas of the world. Of this number, 95 percent will be in countries of the developing world. As most people will live in urban areas we had better work to build and organize them as both attractive and less resource consuming places. That is, to promote sustainable urban development is to promote the creation of dense human settlements that are livable and have reduced their impacts on larger scale ecosystems. While much attention has been focused on the "mega-cities," those with a population of over 10 million, the amount of people living in these places will remain almost constant while the smaller and medium size cities will be the great absorbers of the world's urban population. Indeed, it is predicted that while the absolute number of people that will live in urban centers of 10 million or more will increase from approximately 263 to 375 million between 2000 and 20 IS, their share of the total urban population will only increase from 9. 2 percent to 9. 8 percent, a 6. 34 percent increase.