Safeguarding collective wisdom is a powerful tool for civilization to overcome the major upheavals ahead.Climate change, civil unrest, wars: How will we make it through the tough times looming before us? By remembering, Mary Soderstrom argues. Ours is not the first time in history when catastrophe has threatened societies, and using examples from China, the Roman Empire, and North American Indigenous cultures, Soderstrom shows how memory can lead the way toward the...

An incredible read.… While unflinching in her analysis, Soderstrom nevertheless gifts us with a message of hope and resilience. — MAUDE BARLOW, activist and author of Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism.What can we learn about coping with rising sea levels from ancient times?The scenario we are facing is scary: within a few decades, sea levels around the world may well rise by a metre or more as glaciers and ice caps melt due to clim...

A fascinating history of the carbon footprint of our concrete world—from ancient Roman architecture to urban cityscapes—and the trouble it spells for sustainability amidst rapid climate change.For readers of The Sixth Extinction and The Uninhabitable Earth, Concrete explores the history of a material that has been central to architecture and design for thousands of years—and what its future looks like in a world experiencing rapid climate...

Taking us on walks through Paris, New York, Toronto, North Vancouver and Singapore, Mary Soderstrom examines how cites have changed the lives of ordinary citizens—in positive and negative ways. Making the city walkable again is crucial. The author looks to the future and suggests ways in which we can reorganize our lives and our cities. The idea that a city might not be walkable would never occur to anyone who lived before 1800. Over the past 200 years there have been dramatic changes to o...

An in-depth look at places—nation-states, states, and provinces—that are geographically side-by-side but otherwise, worlds apart.In the summer of 1968, Mary Soderstrom and her husband loaded up their VW Beetle and immigrated to Canada from the United States. The contrast between their new home and their old led to a long-running reflection on what makes the two countries different. How could two places that are similar in so many ways be so disparate in others?...

In a brief, panicked moment, Rick mistakes the kindness of an apparent stranger for a threatening act, and inadvertently commits murder. He flees the scene, and tries to keep secret from his family the unfortunate event that has occurred. Little does he know that not only has he killed an innocent man, but the man is the son of Annie, with whom Rick had an intense relationship in his youth.As Rick and Annie struggle to come to terms with the tragedy, each recalls the life they once...

"A beautiful interweaving of memoir and history, of driving narrative and insightful reflection."—Ken McGoogan, author of Dead Reckoning and Kerouac's GhostAccessible and entertaining, Road Through Time begins with the story of how anatomically modern humans left Africa to populate the world. She then carries us along the Silk Road in Central Asia, and tells of roads built for war in Persia, the Andes, and the Roman Empire. She sails acro...

Green City: People, Nature, and Urban Places looks at eleven cities the world over to see how people and nature have interacted over the course of history, and how people attempt to bring nature into cities. In each of these locations, Soderstrom examines how people have tried to make a connection with naturehow well theyve done is both a lesson in hope and, often, a warning. Featuring chapters on Babylon, Provins (France), London and Bloomsbury, Hamilton, Chicago, Irvine, Singapore, Tanga...

The scenario we are facing is scary: within a few decades, sea levels around the world may well rise by a meter or more as glaciers and ice caps melt due to climate change. Large parts of our coastal cities will be flooded, the basic outline of our world will be changed, and torrential rains will present their own challenges. But this is not the first time that people have had to cope with threatening waters, because sea levels have been rising for thousands of years, ever since the end of...

**Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction"Happy City is not only readable but stimulating. It raises issues most of us have avoided for too long. Do we live in neighbourhoods that make us happy? That is not a silly question. Montgomery encourages us to ask it without embarrassment, and to think intelligently about the answer." --The New York Times**More of us than ever are moving to inner cities, mixed-use suburbs, and densely co...

One of the world's foremost urban designers shares his passion and methods for rejuvenating neglected cities and argues passionately for the importance and possibilities of their renewal.From a youth spent in the boroughs of New York City and other great cities of the world, to his beginnings as an architect in Toronto, Ken Greenberg has long recognized that cities at their best provide much of what we seek in a place to call home. Community, places of culture and business that we ...

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exac...