Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Globalization in the American South (New Directions in Southern Studies)

This is a short book; but it is tedious. It reads like an undergraduate essay thrown together the night before the due date and padded out to meet an imposed word limit. A proof reader could have cut out the repetition. On page 37, we learn that a certain landscape architect called Kessler was German-born from Kansas. On page 68, we again learn that Kessler was from Kansas and on page 70, in case you missed it, Kessler was German-born from Kansas.On page 67 the author writes that a certain road project was approved the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King and repeats it seven pages later. On page 13, the author recounts that Memphis was spared destruction by the Civil War but hard hit by yellow fever, and then she never stops mentioning it. After a while, the reader's eyes automatically skip over any references to yellow fever.There seems little rhyme or reason to what the author chooses to include, or develop. "It has been said that no city has left a greater global impact on modern culture", we learn, and that is enough about that subject. If you check the reference, and then dig a little further on the internet, you find that proposition comes from an eminent British urban planner. Why did the author include this claim if she had no intention of developing or even explaining it? On the other hand, why does she tell us that a 1958 pamphlet for an expressway "features an expressway graphic design on its cover complete with yellow lines and ramps. Throughout the pamphlet, the expressway graphics and title appear next to key subheadings." And in a book about Memphis, there is no map of Memphis.Worse is the author's cumbersome writing style as she attempts to shoehorn her bric-a-brac into a recognisable thesis based on something called an interdisciplinary narrative case study approach. She never uses 15 words if 45 will do, and never shirks from stating the blandly obvious, again and again."Specific features of place, including public spaces and landmarks, may be created, selected and reformulated in material form or symbolic representation as part of efforts to modify, destroy or rebuild urban landscapes".Having hacked my way through the book, I must admit that I now know more about Memphis. However, I could have done as well with Wikipedia, and it would have been quicker and cheaper.