Michael Sorkin
Nicholson sees America with astonishing, jaundiced clarity...Buy it, read it and weep!


Dr Peg Birmingham, De Paul University
Nicholson offers a biting satiric vision which overturns political hierarchies and gleefully violates American consumer habits.


Book Description
War, Peace and Parades: The New American Century from New York to Jerusalem. What if, instead of a towering memorial on the site of Ground Zero, U.S. leaders decided to melt down all the gold in Fort Knox and pour it into the WTC footprints? How would the world change if America pioneered the ethical distribution of oil? If the FDA developed a pill that produced a three-hour orgasm? For Ben Nicholson, such plans are not only useful for U.S. stability, but absolutely essential for world peace. The World Who Wants It? envisages an America full of credit card cemeteries, a tax on workers for taking vacations that are too short and an annual "Are You With Us or Against Us?" parade. Standing apart from the current literature about the state of the word, nicholson's book proposes an action plan that radically advances American values, ultimately leading to a strategy for turning Jerusalem into a cradle of religious harmony. With a glance at America's present, Nicholson peers into its future to aim a satirical swipe at U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Nicholson draws inspiration from politics, architecture and philosophy to demonstrate how the American dream can extend beyond its borders t become a vision for global peace.


From the Publisher
The World Who Wants It? proposes a concrete plan, albeit satirical, for establishing world peace. Set in the near present, the $100 billion that has been pledged by the United States to address the world's wrongs is used to advocate consumptive constraint and to seek new American values, thus lessening the fury of the Third World against America's apparent wastage, misuse of resources, vice and militaristic bombast. In this vision of a new world order, international policy largely focuses on the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem so as to accomodate all the hopes and aspirations of the three Abrahamic faiths - Christianity, Islam, Judaism. The starting point for Ben Nicholson's restructuring of the world is the destruction of the World Trade Center, which purported, given its name, to suggest that the building was the center of world trade. When the towers were destroyed they took along with them a myriad of links and responsibilities that course throughout the globe, touching every aspect of life. It is ultimately immaterial what the shape and size of the rebuilt World Trade Center will be, unless the whole world is simultaneously rethought and restructured along with the reconstruction. What, then, would the new world order be?


About the Author
Ben Nicholson is is assistant professor of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. His previous work includes 'The Appliance House', MIT Press, contributions to 'A New World Trade Center: Design Proposals', Max Protetch, and '10 x 10: 10 Critics, 100 Architects', Phaidon Press.

FROM THE PUBLISHER