Review of 'Cities Under Siege : The New Military Urbanism' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I sometimes suspect that academics like Stephen Graham get paid by word or the number of references they are able to stuff into a book. Graham seems to actually have references the entire field of authors who ever commented anything on this subject. Which means the book is flooding with catchphrases, redundant quotes and tiring academic creditations. Sorry for ranting but this was such a major disturbance and makes me believe his project less. The last chapter was so weak and forcedly "Activism must lead the way" that I could not finish it. As if street art is an exemplary case for combating the military-security-complex (or "raising consciousness" or whatever, I'm sorry, creating "countergeographies").
All this said, Graham does review almost the ENTIRE academic field on the new global cops.
Someone should edit this book, cut it into third of it's length and print it again. It will be extremely …
I sometimes suspect that academics like Stephen Graham get paid by word or the number of references they are able to stuff into a book. Graham seems to actually have references the entire field of authors who ever commented anything on this subject. Which means the book is flooding with catchphrases, redundant quotes and tiring academic creditations. Sorry for ranting but this was such a major disturbance and makes me believe his project less. The last chapter was so weak and forcedly "Activism must lead the way" that I could not finish it. As if street art is an exemplary case for combating the military-security-complex (or "raising consciousness" or whatever, I'm sorry, creating "countergeographies").
All this said, Graham does review almost the ENTIRE academic field on the new global cops.
Someone should edit this book, cut it into third of it's length and print it again. It will be extremely popular and useful.