Urban History

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Below are groups and resources (books, articles, websites, etc.) related to this topic. Click on an item’s title to go its resource page with author, publisher, description/abstract and other details, a link to the full text if available, as well as links to related topics in the Subject Index. You can also browse the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, LoC, and Format indexes, or use the Search box.
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Connexions Library

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity
Berman, Marshall
Book
1982
Berman examines the clash of classes, histories, and clutures in the modern world, and ponders our prospects for coming to terms with the relationship between a liberating social and philosophical ide...
The Arc of Justice and the Long Run: Hope, History, and Unpredictability
Solnit, Rebecca
Article
2013
North American cicada nymphs live underground for 17 years before they emerge as adults. Many seeds stay dormant far longer than that before some disturbance makes them germinate. Sometimes cause and ...
Beautiful Ruination
Strand, Ginger
Article
2009
Iin the last half-century, even as the prophets of prosperity have spurred the U.S. on to ever more growth, ruins have become increasingly common features in the American landscape. Braddock, littered...
Berman, Marshall: Connexipedia Article
Article
American philosopher and Marxist Humanist writer. (Born 1940).
Connexions Library: History Focus Page
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, documents and other resources on historical topics.
Democracy Against Capitalism
Wood, Ellen Meiksins
Book
1995
Wood provides a brilliant explication and defense of the key theoretical concepts relevant to socialism, understood to be the most radical social and economic democracy.
The Economy of Cities
Jacobs, Jane
Book
1970
Ideas about what makes cities rich or poor, how cities grow, and how city growth affects national economies.
A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations
Ponting, Clive
Book
1991
Ponting tracks the "green" history of the world showing how throughout history civilizations have collapsed when they exhausted the earth's natural resources.
The Greening of the Cities
Nicholson-Lord, David
Book
1987
How We Changed Toronto: The inside story of twelve creative, tumultuous years in civic life, 1969-1980
Sewell, John
Book
2015
By the mid-1960s Toronto was well on its way to becoming Canada's largest and most powerful city. One real estate firm aptly labelled it Boomtown. Expressways, subways, shopping centres, high-rise apa...
Is that an archive in your basement... or are you just hoarding?: Sources News Release
Article
2012
Are you an 'accidental archivist'? Have you been saving the publications and documents produced by the social justice projects you've been involved in? Then Connexions would like to hear from you.
Jacobs, Jane: Connexipedia Article
Article
Author, urban advocate, economist, ecologist, and philosopher. (1916-2006).
Liberal Dreams and Nature's Limits: Great Cities of North America Since 1600
Lemon, James T.
Book
1996
An exploration of city life through time, focusing on the life [economically, socially, politically, etc.] of five large North American cities at various times in the past - Philadelphia during the ti...
The Life of the Automobile
Ehrenburg, Ilia
Book
Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution
Harvey, David
Book
2012
Harvey places cities at the centre of an anti-capitalist resistance, asking how they might be reorganized in more socially just and ecologically sustainable ways.
The Secret History of Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was Outlawed - And Why We Should Lift the Ban
Mangla, Ravi
Article
2015
Mangla narrates the origins of jaywalking and the reason why it was made illegal.
Seven News
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1970
Seven News (7 News) was a community newspaper published in the area of Toronto east of downtown which at the time was known as Ward 7. Seven News was published from 1970 to 1985. Seven News is no long...
The Shape of the City: Toronto Struggles with Modern Planning
Sewell, John
Book
1993
John Sewell traces in urban planning from pre-Depression garden cities to postwar modernism and a revival of interest in the streetscape grid.
A Short History of Progress
Wright, Ronald
Book
2004
If the population growth, consumption of resources, and technological advances continue according to the trend of the twentieth century, at the expense of the earth, the outcome may be disastrous.
Society of the Spectacle
Debord, Guy
Book
1967
An analysis of modern society and how it can be changed, written in the form of 221 theses. The first thesis reads: "In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an ...
Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay
Engler, Yves; Mugyenyi, Bianca
Book
2011
A global ecological critique of the American automobile addiction.
The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life
Sennett, Richard
Book
1970
An examination of the ways the modern city has failed, and an exploration of new modes of urban organization through which city life can become richer and more life-affirming.

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Sources Library

The City in History
Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects
Mumford, Lewis
1961
Beginning with an interpretation of the origin and nature of the city, Mumford follows the city's development from Egypt and Mesopotamia through Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages to the modern world.