Urban Politics In Early Modern Europe

No competition that is Europe-wide - other existing books are country/city specific Wide chronological coverage (1500-1789) Covers France, England, Spain, Italy and Central Europe Early modern Europe history is a popular topic at undergraduate level Friedrichs writes clearly and lucidly - he is a big expert on German cities in particular

Comparative urban history examines early modern economic and cultural achievements in Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London.

Hearing the City is a major new contribution to the field of urban musicology in the early modern period with twenty-one essays by leading figures in the field from Europe, the USA and Australia. The urban soundscape is studied from a range of different interdisciplinary perspectives, and its scope is broad, from the major role of city minstrels in fifteenth-century Viennese urban identity to the civic problems presented by the location of opera houses in Enlightenment Naples. The individual contributions explore themes related to the complex relationships between sound and space within the urban context and between social identity and civic authorities and draw on a wide range of source material from city pay documents and legislation to contemporaneous accounts, correspondence, travel writing, religious and moral tracts, fictional writing and architectural legacy. Aspects of urban soundscapes both specific and common to Naples, Rome, Palermo, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Lisbon, London, Vienna, Hamburg and Zurich are analyzed in their broader socio-cultural contexts, as well as the dynamic networks between cities in Europe and beyond. These case studies are framed by Tim Carter's stimulating introduction to the development of historical urban sound studies and a coda in the form of a discussion as to how the results of urban musicology might be applied through a digital platform to reach beyond academic discourse to involve modern citizens in hearing the soundworlds of the past.

A pioneering text which covers the urban society of early modern Europe as a whole. Challenges the usual emphasis on regional diversity by stressing the extent to which cities across Europe shared a common urban civilization whose major features remained remarkably constant throughout the period. After outlining the physical, political, religious, economic and demographic parameters of urban life, the author vividly depicts the everyday routines of city life and shows how pitifully vulnerable city-dwellers were to disasters, epidemics, warfare and internal strife.

Originally published in 1978. Josef Konvitz provides a broad comparative study of European port cities since the Renaissance by examining how they were built and rebuilt in the context of urban industrialization. Konvitz argues that as seafaring became more critical to Western civilization, intellectuals and rulers placed more importance on urban planning. Planning looked different, of course, in various European cities. In Paris, riverside planning was patched into the existing frame of the city, whereas Scandinavian towns on the Baltic were over-designed to accommodate a degree of maritime trade unsustainable for cities writ large. In the eighteenth century, city planning fell out of vogue, and new solutions were introduced to help solve the problems created by urban development. With a series of helpful maps, Konvitz's book is an important source for urban historians of early modern Europe.

Cities and Solidarities charts the ways in which the study of individuals and places can revitalise our understanding of urban communities as dynamic interconnections of solidarities in medieval and early modern Europe. This volume sheds new light on the socio-economic conditions, the formal and informal institutions, and the strategies of individual town dwellers that explain the similarities and differences in the organisation and functioning of urban communities in pre-modern Europe. It considers how communities within cities and towns are constructed and reconstructed, how interactions amongst members of differing groups created social and economic institutions, and how urban communities reflected a sense of social cohesion. In answering these questions, the contributions combine theoretical frameworks with new digital methodologies in order to provoke further discussion into the fundamental nature of urban society in this key period of change. The essays in this collection demonstrate the complexities of urban societies in pre-modern Europe, and will make fascinating reading for students and scholars of medieval and early modern urban history.

This volume brings together studies of communities, politics, religion, gender, and social conflict in the Holy Roman Empire, with special reference to the city of Strasbourg, during the late Middle Ages and the Reformation era. Also included are interpretations of early modern German history and the historical sociology of early modern Europe.

Everyday political business in early modern cities took place under many different sources of tension. De facto establishment of the oligarchy in the government collided with the urban community’s expectations of participation and with the responsibility for common welfare which was supposed to be the guideline for policies in the municipal boards. Urban Elections and Decision-Making in Early Modern Europe offers new interpretations of the governmental techniques applied by urban elites to cope with these tensions. Written by leading historians of urban history and based on a broad foundation of previously unpublished research the volume explores the procedures of decision-making in early modern cities from an international and micrological point of view. It examines the attempts of delegating and stabilising power through elections, asks for the different ways of developing and demonstrating consent or dissent within the cities’ walls—urban revolts included—and offers a new theoretical framework to describe and understand these phenomena adequately.