The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth and Power (Hardback)
Deirdre Mask (author)Published: 02/04/2020
The Address Book maps the fascinating cultural history of streets – how they were named and numbered, and what addresses reveal about the identity of their residents. With surgical geopolitical astuteness, Mask’s book explores how postcodes, avenues and alleyways have always been connected to class, race, wealth and power.
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2021
'Deirdre Mask's book was just up my Strasse, alley, avenue and boulevard. A classic history of nomenclature - loaded, complex and absorbing.' -Simon Garfield, author of Just My Type
Starting with a simple question, 'what do street addresses do?', Deirdre Mask travels the world and back in time to work out how we describe where we live and what that says about us. From the chronological numbers of Tokyo to the naming of Bobby Sands Street in Iran, she explores how our address - or lack of one - expresses our politics, culture and technology.
It affects our health and wealth, and it can even affect the working of our brains. From Ancient Rome to Kolkata today, from cholera epidemics to tax hungry monarchs, Mask discovers the different ways street names are created, celebrated, and in some cases, banned.
Filled with fascinating people and histories, this incisive, entertaining book shows how addresses are about identity, class and race. But most of all they are about power: the power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn't, and why.
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781781259009
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 526 g
Dimensions: 222 x 144 x 35 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Deirdre Mask's book was just up my Strasse, alley, avenue and boulevard. A classic history of nomenclature - loaded, complex and absorbing.' - Simon Garfield
'Fascinating ... intelligent but thoroughly accessible ... full of surprises' - The Sunday Times
'Mask's fascinating study is filled with insights into how addresses affect ordinary people around the world.' - The Guardian
'I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book so much. Thought-provoking and entertaining ... The Address Book is a delight from beginning to end.' - Adrian Tinniswood, The Literary Review
'Illuminating, impressively researched' - iPaper
'[The Address Book] has pretty much everything: a fascinating topic, excellent breadth and depth of research, logical compilations of the facts into topic and an enthusiastic and chatty narrator.' - The Scotsman
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