Infinite Cities: A Trilogy of Atlases--San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, Paperback

Description

"The maps themselves are things of beauty."
--The New York Times

Explore the hidden histories of San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York with this brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas. From Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Snedeker, and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro.

In the past decade, Rebecca Solnit--aided by local writers, artists, historians, urbanists, ethnographers, and cartographers--has compiled three stunning atlases that have radically changed the way we think about place. Each atlas provides a vivid, complex look at the multi-faceted nature of a city as experienced by its different inhabitants, replete with the celebrations and contradictions that make up urban life.

This three-volume paperback set contains:

• The original, gorgeously designed atlases--Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas; Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas; and Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas
• Three new and updated, full-color, fold-out posters for each city, including the popular "City of Women" map
• A new and thoughtful essay by Rebecca Solnit reflecting on the project ten years after the publication of the first atlas

A stunning collection, this boxed set is a perfect treasury of imagination and insight, a rich people's history of these infinite cities.

Jacket

Praise for the Trilogy

"A thought-inducing collection of maps that will challenge your view of what atlases can be."--Kevin Winter, San Francisco/Sacramento/Portland Book Review

"Inventive and affectionate."--Lise Funderburg, New York Times Book Review

Infinite City

"Rebecca Solnit's Infinite City, the SF intellectual's cartographic wonderpiece of Bay Area history and emotion, swept a large part of the Guardian staff off our feet, so pleased were we by its 22 out-of-the-box renderings of the hills and valleys we work and play on. . . . Solnit's book, which features deeply researched essays to accompany each map, showed us new roads toward understanding the Bay Area."--San Francisco Bay Guardian

"A joyous book."--San Francisco Chronicle

Unfathomable City

"New Orleans natives tell the same story in boardrooms and bus stops: Their city is a puzzle wrapped in a tease, a mystery scented by sweet olive and garbage, veiled by humidity, echoing with brass bands and the occasional gunshot. That's the mystery probed on each page of Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, the grand, map-laden anthology assembled by local filmmaker Rebecca Snedeker and the celebrated essayist and thinker Rebecca Solnit."--Chris Waddington, New Orleans Times-Picayune

Nonstop Metropolis

"I am thrilled to have another book-object in this series, as I devoured the San Francisco volume when I was there, and the New Orleans one likewise. Now finally here is one about the town where I live. The format, with the maps, networks, and accompanying stories and histories, is a lovely, nonlinear way of mirroring the almost infinite layers that make up a city. We all have our own mental maps of our cities and the ones we visit--maps that are, like the ones here, historical, musical, temporal, personal, economic, and geographical. The maps in Nonstop Metropolis are a good approximation of how we New Yorkers experience and perceive the city we live in."--David Byrne

Annotation

Explore the hidden histories of San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York with this brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas. Each atlas provides a vivid, complex look at the multi-faceted nature of a city as experienced by its different inhabitants, replete with the celebrations and contradictions that make up urban life.

About the Author

Rebecca Solnit is a writer, historian, and activist. She is the author of twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, and hope and disaster. These include the recent Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer, writer, and regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He is the author of Island People: The Caribbean and the World. Rebecca Snedeker is an Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker and writer whose work supports human rights, creative expression, and her native city, New Orleans.