Atlanta

From its beginnings as a tiny rail-line settlement in 1837 to its emergence as the designated host city for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, Atlanta has been on the move. Its dramatic and ever-changing skyline attests to the fact that it is one of America's most dynamic cities, the epitome of what has come to be known as the ""New South."" Yet for all its striking modern architecture, Atlanta is much more than a collection of soaring skyscrapers, as David King Gleason makes clear in this beautiful new book, featuring some 150 colour photographs of Georgia's capital city in all its splendid variety. Here are Atlanta's impressive business towers, familiar to travelers from all over the world, but here too are its bucolic neighborhoods and parks, its decades-old landmarks and educational institutions, its sporting and entertainment facilities, its museums and theaters.With his camera Gleason roams from downtown, where the nineteenth-century ornateness of the gold-domed State Capitol contrasts with the ultramodern designs of recently built skyscrapers, to the outskirts of this sprawling city, were the winding Chattachoochee River and the mammoth carved granite dome of Stone Mountain attract visitors year-round. He discloses the diversity of Atlanta's many neighborhoods in shots of the rejuvenated Midtown section, whose well-established residential enclaves now sit almost cheek by jowl with new office buildings, and farther to the north, in photographs of the thriving Buckhead area, the site of some of the city's most impressive mansions of the past as well as of more recent vintage.Reflecting Atlanta's importance as an educational center, Gleason includes photographs of such institutions as Emory University, Georgia Tech, and the various colleges (Morehouse, Spelman, and others) that make up the Atlanta University Center. Photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthplace and of the Carter Presidential Center are just two reminders that Georgians have often been at the forefront of political progress in America. The city's interest in culture and recreation is represented in images of the High Museums of Art, the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Underground Atlanta, and the many sporting venues where both college and professional teams compete.An introduction by the Atlanta poet and physician John Stone and captions by newspaper journalist Don O'Briant complement Gleason's evocative photographs. Anyone, longtime resident, newcomer, and visitor alike, will find this a book to keep and treasure.

David King Gleason was a photographer who lived and worked in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His other books include Plantation Homes of Louisiana and the Natchez Area, Virginia Plantation Homes, Over New Orleans, Over Boston, and Over Miami. John Stone is the author of the poetry volumes The Smell of Matches, In All This Rain, Renaming the Streets, and Where Water Begins; and the essay collection In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine. He is a coeditor of On Doctoring, an anthology of literature and medicine that since 1991 has been presented to every student entering a U.S. medical school as a gift from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Now professor of medicine (cardiology) emeritus at Emory University School of Medicine, he was for nineteen years director of admissions and associate dean at the school.