The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, c. 1482. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, c. 1482. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The City

Volume III, Number 4 | fall 2010

Purchase

Painting of a sunlit plaza with people and a bell tower.

Preamble

City Light

By Lewis H. Lapham

When it comes to the medieval cathedral and mosque, the modern skyscraper and the slum, world history is city history.

More

Engraving of an overhead view of the city of Rome.

A Matter of Optics

By Warren Breckman

Rulers of cities have always had an interest in visibility, both in representing their power and in controlling people by seeing them.

More

Map

City Narratives

The tumultuous histories of Algiers, Istanbul, Beijing, and Mexico City.

View

1840 | Venice

Tourist Destination

Hans Christian Andersen pays homage to Venice.More

c. 330 BC | Athens

Census

The demographics of the ideal city.More

1883 | Los Angeles

Ancien Régime

Looking at the remnants of old California.More

Charts & Graphs

The gangs of New York.

Turf Wars

The gangs of New York.

View

German philosopher Oswald Spengler.

British urban planner Ebenezer Howard.

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen

Engraving of the medieval Arab traveler Ibn Battuta.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

American food journalist and editor Frederick Kaufman.

The life of the city never lets you go, nor do you ever want it to.

—Wallace Stevens, 1952

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

Purchase