Marginal Man: Life of Emilio Goggio
Author, Marginal Man: Life of Emilio Goggio, independently published (2024)
Publication Date: January 31, 2024 | ISBN: 9798869984623
Reviews
“With a grandson’s heart and the mind of a scholar, Paul Brown takes us on a literary journey well worth traveling. Marginal Man is the story of Emilio Goggio who, as a young boy, boarded a ship from Italy to America. In Boston, he lived and worked with his father, who he had never previously met. He achieves the American dream, graduating from Harvard and eventually settling in Toronto to teach the Italian studies that he loves. Pride in his mother country, and enthusiasm for 1920s Fascism, left him a victim of wartime “cancel culture” — struggling to restore his reputation throughout his twilight years. Painstakingly researched, Brown weaves his knowledge into a seamless recounting of Goggio’s remarkable life. It is a journey of great highs and desperate lows, in a bygone era, eerily similar to the world today.” — Tom Philp, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist, Sacramento Bee
“Paul Redvers Brown provides a sweeping view of the era that saw the rise and fall of Fascism in Italy and its repercussions among the Italian communities in North America. This ambitious reconstruction is the backdrop that allows him to keep the promise he made as a young man to write the biography of his grandfather, Emilio Goggio. The result is Marginal Man, a meticulously detailed portrait, where filial piety and family ties never obscure historical accuracy and documentary evidence. Brown expertly merges world politics and personal memories to shed light and invite inquiry on the complexities of a man and the times he lived in.” — Cristina Della Coletta, Dean, School of Arts and Humanities, University of California, San Diego
“With impressive journalistic meticulousness, the author attempts to precisely define the nature of Goggio’s sometimes murky association with the Italian government, which certainly involved the dissemination of state-sponsored propaganda, for which he likely received monetary remuneration. In fact, Goggio was so successful at “spreading the gospel of Fascism” that he was knighted by the King of Italy. With admirable intelligence and clarity, Brown attempts to explain how such a morally decent and thoroughly intelligent man could become so attached to a politically nefarious movement: ‘Professor Goggio was predisposed to embrace the patriotic signals emitting from radio beacons in Italy. He was entranced by Mussolini’s showmanship, having been awakened to the powerful appeal of mass media himself. From his location in North America, ‘Italy’ was a combination of literary trope, nostalgic memories, and cultural iconography. Emilio’s Italy flourished in the landscape of his mind—the ethereal home of his self-esteem and identity.’ The sole failing of the author’s thoughtful biography—one that’s unabashedly affectionate but appropriately critical as well—is that he dwells on the minute details of Goggio’s quotidian and professional life in an apparent attempt to achieve encyclopedic comprehensiveness. As a result, some sections read like a narrated curriculum vitae. Nonetheless, this is an intellectually engrossing work and a thrilling portal into tumultuous historical times. A captivating blend of personal biography and world history.” —Kirkus Reviews
Author, Too Good to Be True: Scottsdale and Privatization in the 1980s, independently published (2020)
Gold Medal Winner for Creative Non-Fiction 2021 eLit Awards
Finalist in the 2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards
Publication Date: March 7, 2020 | ISBN-13 : 979-8614428273 | Edition 1 | This is the personal story of a very public project. It’s a roller-coaster ride from big achievements to colossal blunders, seen through the eyes of an ambitious MBA, in way over his head. Ultimately, it's a cautionary tale for young professionals that there’s a lot to be gained by taking risks and even more to be learned from accepting defeat. In 1984, a respected Boston environmental engineering firm took on the industry’s biggest engineer-constructors to win the first municipal water treatment plant privatization project in the country. The City of Scottsdale, Arizona had embarked on the "untested" financing approach to take advantage of tax incentives that arrived with the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Because it was the first of its kind, and the water industry saw many more to come, this small project captured nationwide attention. As the City raced to build the treatment facilities needed to take long-awaited water supply from the Colorado River, a team of aggressive long shots took on the world of infrastructure development and finance.
Reviews
"Readers interested in large-scale construction and resource management projects will absorb Brown's thorough overview of the Scottsdale project, the wins and the setbacks, and the intricacies of tax rates and sales documents. Professionals in any field can apply Brown's information to a general business context, the enormous number of steps involved in corporate negotiations, and all the ways things can go wrong. This is useful and often gripping reading for MBAs and executives as well as urban planners and officials." — BookLife
"Brown finds high drama in unexpected places in a book that's part memoir and part corporate history. . . It was the middle of the Reagan decade, and he took on a central role in the development of a water treatment plant in Scottsdale, Arizona. He recounts the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of the years long process of getting the project approved, financed, and built, which was far more complex than uninitiated readers may expect. Those who are interested in the nitty-gritty of public-private partnerships will surely find much of interest here, as will those who are curious about life in the corporate trenches of the era. . . ." — Kirkus Review
"Brown's clear descriptions of the privatization process, from bidding to completion, should make satisfying reading for MBAs and corporate planners. . . . It's Brown's depiction of high-stakes business culture, however, that opens the book to a wider audience. Meetings take place in posh restaurants or established watering holes, which Brown describes with relish: 'Paul Shank's French Quarter restaurant and lounge attracted headliners from across the country.... [making] the French Quarter one of the classiest spots in the Valley -- the kind of class served up by cocktail waitresses in strapless corsets and black pantyhose.' " — BlueInk Review
"Brown does an excellent job of capturing atmospheres, so that you can almost feel the excitement or anxiety or disappointment of any given moment in the tale, even if the next chapter redirects you into a history of Scottsdale's settlement or a loving ode to a particular restaurant's zabaglione. Above all, this is an interesting primary-source look at 1980s American corporate culture, a historical moment in time captured in the course of one story that offers a clear and thoughtful perspective on the era's mood, its mistakes, and its lessons." - Catherine Langrehr, IndieReader
Co-Author (with Dr. Vladimir Novotny and Jack Ahern), Water Centric Sustainable Communities: Planning, Retrofitting, and Building the Next Urban Environment, published by Wiley (2010)
Publication Date: October 12, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0470476087 | ISBN-13: 978-0470476086 | Edition: 1 | The current literature compartmentalizes the complex issue of water and wastewater into its discrete components; technology, planning, policy, construction, economics, etc. Considered from the perspective of sustainability, however, water in the urban environment must be approached as a single resource that can be continuously reused and recycled. This book will be the first to capture all of the current work on this idea in a single, integrated, plan for designing the water-centric cities of the future. From new construction to the retrofitting of existing systems, this book presents the case for a new urban relationship to water, one with a more sustainable connection to the environment and the hydrological cycle. Through case studies of successfully planned and built systems around the world, the book will educate the reader about the need for a new approach to urban water management, and make the case that these changes are not only possible but imperative.
Co-editor (with Dr. Vladimir Novotny), Cities of the Future: Towards Integrated Sustainable Water and Landscape Management, published by IWA (2007)
Publication Date: 05 Sep 2007 | ISBN: 9781843391364 | Pages: 352 | Hardback | This book is developed from and includes the presentations of leading international experts and scholars in the 12-14 July, 2006 Wingspread Workshop. With urban waters as a focal point, this book will explore the links between urban water quality and hydrology, and the broader concepts of green cities and smart growth. It also addresses legal and social barriers to urban ecological sustainability and proposes practical ways to overcome those barriers. Cities of the Future features chapters containing visionary concepts on how to ensure that cities and their water resources become ecologically sustainable and are able to provide clean water for all beneficial uses. The book links North American and Worldwide experience and approaches. The book is primarily a professional reference aimed at a wide interdisciplinary audience, including universities, consultants, environmental advocacy groups and legal environmental professionals.
Chapter Author (Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, Editors), Growing Greener Cities: Urban Sustainability in the Twenty‐First Century, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (2008)
In Growing Greener Cities, a collection of essays on urban sustainability and environmental issues edited by Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, scholars and practitioners alike promote activities that recognize and conserve nature's ability to sustain urban life. These essays demonstrate how partnerships across professional organizations, businesses, advocacy groups, governments, and individuals themselves can bring green solutions to cities from London to Seattle. Beyond park and recreational spaces, initiatives that fall under the green umbrella range from public transit and infrastructure improvement to aquifer protection and urban agriculture.
Growing Greener Cities offers an overview of the urban green movement, case studies in effective policy implementation, and tools for measuring and managing success. Thoroughly illustrated with color graphs, maps, and photographs, Growing Greener Cities provides a panoramic view of urban sustainability and environmental issues for green-minded city planners, policy makers, and citizens.
Contributing Author (Gary Hack, Eugenie Birch, Paul Sedway, and Mitchell Silver, Editors), Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice, published by ICMA Press (2009)
Publication Date: June 15, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0873261488 | ISBN-13: 978-0873261487 | Edition: 1 | Local Planning is the all-new edition of the popular book, The Practice of Local Government Planning, which has been the valued resource for preparing for the AICP exam. This new edition helps the reader understand the complexities of planning at the local level, and prepare to make decisions in a challenging environment. The eight chapters in Local Planning, roughly spanning from context to applications, consists of articles written by a wide range of experts-academics, practitioners, clients, and observers of planning. Many examples of planning in action illustrate central principles.