The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present: 66 (History of the Urban Environment) - Softcover

Melosi, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822959836 ISBN 13: 9780822959830

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008

Synopsis

Immersed in their on-demand, highly consumptive, and disposable lifestyles, most urban Americans take for granted the technologies that provide them with potable water, remove their trash, and process their wastewater. These vital services, however, are the byproduct of many decades of development by engineers, sanitarians, and civic planners.In ""The Sanitary City"", Martin V. Melosi assembles a comprehensive, thoroughly researched and referenced history of sanitary services in urban America. He examines the evolution of water supply, sewage systems, and solid waste disposal during three distinct eras: The Age of Miasmas (pre-1880); The Bacteriological Revolution (1880-1945); and The New Ecology (1945 to present-day).Originally published in 2000, this abridged edition includes updated text and bibliographic materials. ""The Sanitary City"" is an essential resource for those interested in environmental history, environmental engineering, science and technology, urban studies, and public health.

About this title

Review

"Melosi has written an intellectual and technologically oriented account of the efforts of urban leaders to foster control of the built environment and enhance the health of citizens. Scholars in urban and environmental history will begin their future work with Melosi's book, and they will consult it regularly. Here is a book that practitioners will read, assign, and debate."
--Journal of Urban History

"A substantial work of scholarship that provides a highly useful history of the development and consequences of urban water, sewer, and solid waste infrastructure in the United States. Extensively referenced, heavily illustrated, and well written, it should be a standard on the subject for many years."
--Technology and Culture

"A monumental work, the outcome of well over a decade of research by an important scholar. A milestone in public works history. It is likely to become the first work to which future scholars interested in the sanitary technologies in America will turn."
--ISIS

About the Author

Martin V. Melosi is Distinguished University Professor of History and director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, including Energy Metropolis: An Environmental History of Houston and the Gulf Coast; Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment; and Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0822959836
• ISBN 13: 9780822959830
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400