The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
Dyja, Thomas. New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021. Reviewed by Bob Carey To get at what Thomas Dyja is after in his new book, begin with the epilogue. Having drawn us into a lengthy but spirited chronicle which begins in the seventies […]
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By Charles Lester With his most recent book, Charles Blow offers an intriguing proposition for Black empowerment–a mass migration of African Americans to the South. He argues that the project of northern and western migration of previous generations has given way to racial prejudice, de facto segregation, failing schools, chronic underemployment, few economic opportunities or […]
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By Alan Lessoff The gaudy psychodrama that led to January’s trashing of the Capitol gave Americans even more to fret about during the already dreary months when those of us who adhered to public health advice were compelled to interact with the country mostly from home, through televisions and computer screens. As an historian who […]
Read MoreThis blog post is the first in a series of posts supporting the UHA’s inaugural Membership Drive. These posts will introduce you to some of the many amazing scholars, activists, teachers, and others in the UHA’s membership community, as well as highlight the role played by the UHA in the lives and careers of its […]
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Marta Gutman You wear a lot of hats! What are your many and varied affiliations? I am Interim Dean and Professor of Architecture (History and Theory) at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of the City University of New York, and Professor of Art History and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Graduate Center […]
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Hamilton, Peter E. Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. Reviewed by James Watson-Krips There are few places in the world quite like Hong Kong. Billed as “Asia’s World City,” it is today celebrated as much for its striking cityscape as its vibrant street […]
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For the final installment in our series on the Cambridge Elements in Global Urban History, Alexia Yates presents the following essay-in-images that reflects on her recently published Element, Real Estate and Global Urban History. By Alexia Yates Between 1936 and 1941, the WPA Writer’s Program penned a study of New York City’s Black community. In […]
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The editors of the Cambridge Elements in Global Urban History join Antonio Carbone, author of a forthcoming Element in the series, to talk about the volume, its relevance to COVID-19, and the direction Carbone’s research is taking next. Your Element is about pandemics—hard to be more timely! What was it like writing about pandemics while […]
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Mayor. Directed by David Osit. Rosewater Pictures, LLC, 2020. Reviewed by Maytal Mark City branding is not the topic one expects to dwell on in a documentary about Palestinian civil engineer and Ramallah mayor Musa Hadid. But Mayor director David Osit’s camera returns repeatedly to the visual symbol of the city’s prominent “WeRamallah” sign, built […]
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By Dan Garodnick As New York City gets ready to choose its new mayor, one community is watching the results with particular interest. Having recently seen a decade of tumult across two mayoralties, the residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village understand that the occupant of Gracie Mansion matters to their safety and security. […]
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The Metropole 