Volume II charts European urbanism between 700 and 1850, the millennium during which Europe became the world’s most urbanised region. Featuring thirty-six chapters from leading scholars working on all the major linguistic areas of Europe, the volume offers a state-of-the-art survey that explores and explains this transformation, how similar or different such processes were across Europe, and how far it is possible to discern traits that characterise European urbanism in this period. The first half of the volume offers overviews on the urban history of Mediterranean Europe, Atlantic and North Sea Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and European urbanisms around the world. The second half explores major themes, from the conceptualisation of cities and their material fabric to continuities and changes in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural histories of cities and towns.

This text analyses four key movements. First, it delves into the simultaneous emergence of a new modern and colonial identity in Europe and the exploration and domination processes in America. Next, it examines diverse theoretical perspectives on cultural exchanges. The third movement scrutinises European professionals’ approaches to Latin America, considering both the European context and the distinct characteristics of Latin American countries. Lastly, the focus shifts to urbanists Agache and Brünner, revealing their active role – activating contracts, public debates, incentives to professional training, and institutionalisation – in shaping the exchanges between the two continents. Their influence, while instrumental in constructing Latin American urbanism, tended to favour elites, homogenising and hegemonising future perspectives and marginalising broader social contexts. The call for decolonising urbanism urges a re-evaluation of its history, acknowledging and incorporating the diverse and historically grounded identities suppressed in the past.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

Volume II charts European urbanism between 700 and 1850, the millennium during which Europe became the world’s most urbanised region. Featuring thirty-six chapters from leading scholars working on all the major linguistic areas of Europe, the volume offers a state-of-the-art survey that explores and explains this transformation, how similar or different such processes were across Europe, and how far it is possible to discern traits that characterise European urbanism in this period. The first half of the volume offers overviews on the urban history of Mediterranean Europe, Atlantic and North Sea Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and European urbanisms around the world. The second half explores major themes, from the conceptualisation of cities and their material fabric to continuities and changes in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural histories of cities and towns.

This chapter focuses on the cities produced by state socialism first in the Soviet Union and then in Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Split from the onset between radical change and incremental reform, socialist urbanism created some cities from scratch, yet others were old-timers transformed under the new political impetus. It will be argued that it is the latter type, especially historic capitals, that best represents the evolution of the socialist city. The political economy of making a socialist city is first outlined, discussing the urban impact of ideological tenets such as the elimination of private property and the town–country divide, the industrialisation drive and central planning. This is followed by a review of the evolution of the urban model contextualising trends vis-à-vis political and social changes: from Stalinist monumentality, through de-Stalinisation and its concern for the material conditions of life, to the last two decades when urbanism was overwhelmed by social and environmental problems. The conclusion discusses the afterlife of socialist cities, focusing on the consequences of privatisation, de-industrialisation, deregulation and decommunisation after 1989.

Science, technology, and medicine (STM) and the European city are inextricably linked. In the mid-nineteenth century this intricate relationship became dialectic. The urban space not only served as a facilitator of knowledge production and circulation, but was also transformed by STM.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

Volume II charts European urbanism between 700 and 1850, the millennium during which Europe became the world’s most urbanised region. Featuring thirty-six chapters from leading scholars working on all the major linguistic areas of Europe, the volume offers a state-of-the-art survey that explores and explains this transformation, how similar or different such processes were across Europe, and how far it is possible to discern traits that characterise European urbanism in this period. The first half of the volume offers overviews on the urban history of Mediterranean Europe, Atlantic and North Sea Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and European urbanisms around the world. The second half explores major themes, from the conceptualisation of cities and their material fabric to continuities and changes in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural histories of cities and towns.

The Christian military operations against the Iberian Muslim kingdoms (10th -11th centuries) led to the development of walled urban centres inhabited by warriors. During the later Middle Ages, Iberian urban economies benefited from European and Mediterranean trade and a large numbers of slaves, first traded from the Eastern Mediterranean, and later from Africa. The imperial projects of Portugal and Spain had a major impact on big cities like Lisbon and Seville, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The crisis of the seventeenth century and Spain’s decline in international politics facilitated that in the eighteenth century the inner cities became identified with rentier clergy and hidalgos lacking economic initiative, while the most dynamic urban development happened in port cities. Spain’s urban society was by then incapable of absorbing surplus rural populations, despite the positive effect of trade with colonies and the attractiveness of its growing cities.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

Volume II charts European urbanism between 700 and 1850, the millennium during which Europe became the world’s most urbanised region. Featuring thirty-six chapters from leading scholars working on all the major linguistic areas of Europe, the volume offers a state-of-the-art survey that explores and explains this transformation, how similar or different such processes were across Europe, and how far it is possible to discern traits that characterise European urbanism in this period. The first half of the volume offers overviews on the urban history of Mediterranean Europe, Atlantic and North Sea Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and European urbanisms around the world. The second half explores major themes, from the conceptualisation of cities and their material fabric to continuities and changes in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural histories of cities and towns.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

The urban systems of Germany and Switzerland were characterised by the federal structure of the political system, whereas Vienna clearly was the primate city for the Habsburg territories until 1918. Urban growth was unbalanced, showing in the over-proportional growth of ‘central places’ and the rise of ‘new’ cities close to coal and iron. Despite the plutocratic nature of urban governance in German and Austrian cities, municipal government reacted to the challenges of urbanisation and industrialisation and developed a professionalised service administration catering for the basic needs of urban residents.

After 1918 German, Austrian and Swiss cities saw a very innovative period with social housing ranking high on the agenda, particularly in ‘Red Vienna’. The Great Depression and National Socialism terminated this reform period, leaving massively destroyed urban landscapes in Germany and Austria after 1945. After the Second World War, the decades until the mid-1970s were dominated by a robust economic boom, urban reconstruction and mass motorisation, whereas the period after the oil crisis saw a questioning of former engineering and planning approaches and a new appreciation of heritage.