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

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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.

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Photograph of a crowd of people seated in bleachers and looking up.

Waiting for Goffman

By Michael Dirda

There are few better interpreters of modern metropolitan life than sociologist Erving Goffman.

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Map

City Narratives

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

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1920 | San Francisco

The Scene Almost Staggers

H.L. Mencken leaves his heart in San Francisco.More

325 | Constantinople

Divine Plan

Constantine builds a city in his own image.More

1666 | London

Most Horrid, Malicious, Bloody Flame

Samuel Pepys gives an eyewitness account of the Great Fire of London.More

Charts & Graphs

Town Meetings

Where to see and be seen.

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French novelist Irène Némirovsky.

Statue depicting Roman orator and historian Tacitus.

American composer George Gershwin.

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen

Black and white photograph of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.

Image from Codex Manesse depicting a tournament of knights.

American writer, political activist, urban theorist, and historian Mike Davis.

English diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys.

By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.

—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BC

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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