Focused on struggles and debates in France, Martinique and Canada, Urban Revolutions shows how research on the (neo-)colonial dimensions of capitalist urbanization deepens the relationship between Marxist and anti-colonial traditions, including those represented by Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon.

Originally published in 1970, The Urban Revolution marked Henri Lefebvre’s first sustained critique of urban society, a work in which he pioneered the use of semiotic, structuralist, and poststructuralist methodologies in analyzing the development of the urban environment. Although it is widely considered a foundational book in contemporary thinking about the city, The Urban Revolution has never been translated into English—until now. This first English edition, deftly translated by Robert Bononno, makes available to a broad audience Lefebvre’s sophisticated insights into the urban dimensions of modern life.Lefebvre begins with the premise that the total urbanization of society is an inevitable process that demands of its critics new interpretive and perceptual approaches that recognize the urban as a complex field of inquiry. Dismissive of cold, modernist visions of the city, particularly those embodied by rationalist architects and urban planners like Le Corbusier, Lefebvre instead articulates the lived experiences of individual inhabitants of the city. In contrast to the ideology of urbanism and its reliance on commodification and bureaucratization—the capitalist logic of market and state—Lefebvre conceives of an urban utopia characterized by self-determination, individual creativity, and authentic social relationships.A brilliantly conceived and theoretically rigorous investigation into the realities and possibilities of urban space, The Urban Revolution remains an essential analysis of and guide to the nature of the city.Henri Lefebvre (d. 1991) was one of the most significant European thinkers of the twentieth century. His many books include The Production of Space (1991), Everyday Life in the Modern World (1994), Introduction to Modernity (1995), and Writings on Cities (1995).Robert Bononno is a full-time translator who lives in New York. His recent translations include The Singular Objects of Architecture by Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel (Minnesota, 2002) and Cyberculture by Pierre Lévy (Minnesota, 2001).

Urban Revolutions is a different kind of cycling book. Author Emilie Bahr draws on her own experience as an everyday cyclist and a transportation planner in New Orleans to demystify urban bicycling in this visually-compelling and fun-to-read field guide. What does it mean for a city to be bike-friendly? What makes bicycling a women's issue? What does it take to feel safe on a bike? How do you bike to work in the summer and still look professional? What is the most fun you can possibly have on two wheels without having to become an athlete? Bahr answers all these questions and more in her friendly and thoughtful essays and detailed practical tips.

Manifesto on the urban commons from the acclaimed theorist.

The author argues that urban locations are ideal for technological, economic, and social innovation.

Originally published in 1970, The Urban Revolution marked Henri Lefebvre's first sustained critique of urban society, a work in which he pioneered the use of semiotic, structuralist, and poststructuralist methodologies in analyzing the development of the urban environment. Although it is widely considered a foundational book in contemporary thinking about the city, The Urban Revolution has never been translated into English--until now. This first English edition, deftly translated by Robert Bononno, makes available to a broad audience Lefebvre's sophisticated insights into the urban dimensions of modern life. Lefebvre begins with the premise that the total urbanization of society is an inevitable process that demands of its critics new interpretive and perceptual approaches that recognize the urban as a complex field of inquiry. Dismissive of cold, modernist visions of the city, particularly those embodied by rationalist architects and urban planners like Le Corbusier, Lefebvre instead articulates the lived experiences of individual inhabitants of the city. In contrast to the ideology of urbanism and its reliance on commodification and bureaucratization--the capitalist logic of market and state--Lefebvre conceives of an urban utopia characterized by self-determination, individual creativity, and authentic social relationships. A brilliantly conceived and theoretically rigorous investigation into the realities and possibilities of urban space, The Urban Revolution remains an essential analysis of and guide to the nature of the city.

How and why cities have become the predominant sites for revolutionary upheavals in the contemporary world Examining the changing character of revolution around the world, The Revolutionary City focuses on the impact that the concentration of people, power, and wealth in cities exercises on revolutionary processes and outcomes. Once predominantly an urban and armed affair, revolutions in the twentieth century migrated to the countryside, as revolutionaries searched for safety from government repression and discovered the peasantry as a revolutionary force. But at the end of the twentieth century, as urban centers grew, revolution returned to the city—accompanied by a new urban civic repertoire espousing the containment of predatory government and relying on visibility and the power of numbers rather than arms. Using original data on revolutionary episodes since 1900, public opinion surveys, and engaging examples from around the world, Mark Beissinger explores the causes and consequences of the urbanization of revolution in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Beissinger examines the compact nature of urban revolutions, as well as their rampant information problems and heightened uncertainty. He investigates the struggle for control over public space, why revolutionary contention has grown more pacified over time, and how revolutions involving the rapid assembly of hundreds of thousands in central urban spaces lead to diverse, ad hoc coalitions that have difficulty producing substantive change. The Revolutionary City provides a new understanding of how revolutions happen and what they might look like in the future.