The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
Andrew Konove Assistant Professor Department of History, University of Texas at San Antonio @AndrewKonove Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I just completed my first book, Black Market Capital: Urban Politics and the Shadow Economy in Mexico City, which will be published later this spring. It traces the history of Mexico […]
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By Kelsey Rice In 1806, the city of Baku was a sleepy port town of about 3,000-5,000 Turkic and Persian Muslims, governed by a local Khan who swore fealty to the Qajar state. Compared to the cities of Shamakha to the north and Shusha to the west, it was a relative cultural and political backwater, […]
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By Carlo Rotella The best spot for ectoplasmic people-watching in South Shore is the raised wooden platform of the Bryn Mawr Metra station at 71st and Jeffery. This is the old Illinois Central station that formed the principal bud from which this neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago grew in the late nineteenth century, […]
Read MoreMargaret O’Mara Professor of History University of Washington Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’m currently working on a book about the history of the American high-tech industry—from semiconductors to social media—and its relationship to the worlds of politics and finance. My interest and intent here is, to adapt a phrase, […]
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By Carl Abbott The picture window in the modest suburban house in Belle Reve, New Jersey is marred by a long crack from top to bottom. Built for World War II veterans, its foundation is cracking after a dozen years and there’s no money to fix the fifteen-foot window that supposedly signaled upward mobility. Forward […]
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By Kristin Stapleton Over the past thirty years, Chinese cities have boomed – more than 100 Chinese cities have populations of over a million, and the world’s newest skyscrapers are continuously reshaping their skylines. Fiction that can be characterized as “urban” is less common in China than in many other parts of the world, however. […]
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By Brian Tochterman Across the banner of “The Metropole” as I write spans the George Washington Bridge, the majestic and modern steel link between the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan and the city of Fort Lee, New Jersey, although those that cross it typically seek points far beyond those two ends. The “GWB” serves as […]
Read MoreValerie Paley, Ph.D. Vice President and Chief Historian, New-York Historical Society Director, Center for Women’s History Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? As a public historian working at New York City’s oldest museum, I find that my day job keeps me nimble where research is concerned. Just recently, I studied up […]
Read MoreBy Elaine Lewinnek Once, my colleague’s parents were visiting from their rural hometown on a day when my department was holding an event. I don’t remember now if it was someone’s book party or retirement party or research colloquium, but I do remember that my colleague invited her parents to come along. “Oh, I don’t […]
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“The city of Angels is unique, not simply in the frequency of its fictional destruction, but in the pleasure that such apocalypses provide to readers and movie audiences,” Mike Davis wrote in Ecology of Fear. “The entire world seems to be rooting for Los Angeles to slide into the Pacific or to be swallowed up […]
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The Metropole 