“This is a sensory history and a sensual story told from street level . . . a clear and powerful account of the transformation of street life in Europe.” —Leora Auslander, author of Taste and Power Merchants’ shouts, jostling strangers, aromas of fresh fish and flowers, plodding horses, and friendly chatter long filled the narrow, crowded streets of the European city. As they developed over many centuries, these spaces of commerce, communion, and commuting framed daily life. At its heyday in the 1800s, the European street was the place where social worlds connected and collided. Brian Ladd recounts a rich social and cultural history of the European city street, tracing its transformation from a lively scene of trade and crowds into a thoroughfare for high-speed transportation. Looking closely at four major cities—London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—Ladd uncovers both the joys and the struggles of a past world. The story takes us up to the twentieth century, when the life of the street was transformed as wealthier citizens withdrew from the crowds to seek refuge in suburbs and automobiles. As demographics and technologies changed, so did the structure of cities and the design of streets, significantly shifting our relationships to them. In today’s world of high-speed transportation and impersonal marketplaces, Ladd leads us to consider how we might draw on our history to once again build streets that encourage us to linger. By unearthing the vivid descriptions recorded by amused and outraged contemporaries, Ladd reveals the changing nature of city life, showing why streets matter and how they can contribute to public life. “[A] dazzlingly kaleidoscopic overview of city life, city living, and city dying.” —Judith Flanders, author of The Invention of Murder

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ...called. The Binnen-Alster is perfectly square, about a mile in circumference and surrounded on three sides by wide quays bordered with trees, handsome dwellings and magnificent hotels. The quay called the Alte-Jungfernstieg is the gayest and busiest; on its left is the N cue-Jungfernstieg and on its right is the Alsterdamm; while, directly opposite the Alte-Jungfernstieg, and separating the Binnen-Alster from the outer lake, is an embankment consisting of two parks, or promenades, connected by a bridge called the Lombardsbrilcke. A beautiful view is to be had from this bridge, looking north across the Ausser-Alster, with its rising banks, on which the villas of the wealthy with their parks and gardens are thickly sprinkled; and, looking south across the Binnen-Alster, gay with little boats and floating swans, to the city whose buildings and towers make such a pretty picture. At the end of the Old J ungfernstieg the Alster-Pavillion is situated, --a cafe that is to Hamburg what the Bratwurstgliickle is to Nuremburg and the H ofbrdw haus to Munich. On the right of the Old J ungfernstieg are the Alster Arcades, a street running parallel with the little Alster that flows in from the lake and filled with attractive shops. The Alster Arcades extend from the Reesendammbrilcke to the Schleusenbriicke, two bridges that run parallel with the Old Jungfernstieg. " The picture seen from the Alster," exclaims an artist, "is harmonious in line and picturesque in composition with the mass of many slender towers artistically distributed in a fine frame composed of beautiful groups of buildings. Naturally, you must select your point of view in order to see it embedded in green. If we are in a boat on the Outer Alster we see the...

Visit 15 of Europe's greatest cities: London, Edinburgh, Lisbon, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Rome, Florence, Venice and Athens.

A work of history, but also about art and architecture, trade and commerce, travel and exploration, economics and politics, this is above all a book about people and how, over the millennia, they have managed to live closely together. From the origins of urbanization in Mesopotamia to the global metropolises of today, great cities have marked the development of humankind Babylon and Nineveh, Athens and Rome, Istanbul and Venice, Timbuktu and Samarkand, their very names are redolent both of history and romance. The Great Cities in History tells their story from early Uruk and Thebes to Jerusalem and Alexandria. Then the fabulous cities of the first millennium: Damascus and Baghdad in the days of the Caliphates, Teotihuacan and Maya Tikal in Central America, and Changan, capital of Tang Dynasty China. The medieval world saw the rise of powerful cities: Palermo and Paris in Europe, Benin in Africa and Angkor of the Khmer. In the early modern world, we journey to Islamic Isfahan and Agra, and Prague and Amsterdam in their heyday, before arriving at the phenomenon of the contemporary mega-city: London and New York, Tokyo and Barcelona, Los Angeles and São Paulo. A galaxy of more than fifty distinguished authors, including Jan Morris, Colin Thubron, Simon Schama, Orlando Figes, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Misha Glenny, Adam Zamoyski and A. N. Wilson, evoke the character of each place and explain the reasons for its success, seeing what each city would have been like during its golden age.