A Modern History of European Cities

Rosemary Wakeman's original survey text comprehensively explores modern European urban history from 1815 to the present day. It provides a journey to cities and towns across the continent, in search of the patterns of development that have shaped the urban landscape as indelibly European. The focus is on the built environment, the social and cultural transformations that mark the patterns of continuity and change, and the transition to modern urban society.

Including over 60 images that serve to illuminate the analysis, the book examines whether there is a European city, and if so, what are its characteristics? Wakeman offers an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates concepts from cultural and postcolonial studies, as well as urban geography, and provides full coverage of urban society not only in western Europe, but also in eastern and southern Europe, using various cities and city types to inform the discussion. The book provides detailed coverage of the often-neglected urbanization post-1945 which allows us to more clearly understand the modernizing arc Europe has followed over the last two centuries.

Auteur

Rosemary Wakeman is Professor of History at Fordham University, USA. She is the author of Practicing Utopia: An Intellectual History of the New Town Movement (2016) and The Heroic City: Paris 1945-1958 (2009), as well as Modernizing the Provincial City: Toulouse 1945-1975 (1998). She is also the editor of Themes in Modern European History since 1945 (2003).

Contenu

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Grand Tour of Urban Europe (1815)
Chapter 2. Travels through Industrial Landscapes
Chapter 3. Entertainments and Romantic Dreamscapes (1815-1848)
Chapter 4. Roaming the Markets
Chapter 5. Urban Reform and the Planned City
Chapter 6. Wandering City Streets
Chapter 7. Sightseeing in the Big City (Fin-de-Siècle)
Chapter 8. Electric Cities and Avant-Garde Itineraries (1920s-1930s)
Chapter 9. Modernism and the City (1920s-1930s)
Chapter 10. Searching through the Rubble (1939-1950s)
Chapter 11. Car Trips through the City (1960s-1970s)
Chapter 12. Crossing Urban Boundaries after the Berlin Wall
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index