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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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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Bird's eye view of Rome, by Matthus Merian, c. 1641.

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.

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Map

City Narratives

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

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c. 1821 | Paris

Assaying a Crowd

Balzac gives an introduction to the world of necessary superfluities.More

1920 | San Francisco

The Scene Almost Staggers

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

1520 | Tenochtitlán

Nothing Is Equal

Cortés extols the splendor of the Aztecs.More

Charts & Graphs

Everything included in an original model for a Levittown house in 1953.

Welcome to Levittown

The following is included in every house...

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American food journalist and editor Frederick Kaufman.

American author and journalist Jamie James.

German philosopher Oswald Spengler.

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Greek rhetorician Libanius.

Photograph of Charles Baudelaire

Henry David Thoreau

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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Lapham’sDaily

Physician with a urine flask, from a medieval manuscript. Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0).

Roundtable

Medieval Wellness Tips

By Daniel Wakelin

Whether the problem was an arrowhead, a beating, or being visible, Middle English manuscripts from the fifteenth century offered solutions. More

Man and Woman Being Chased by Bees (detail), by Honoré Daumier. The New York Public Library, Art and Picture Collection.

DÉjÀ Vu

The Perfect Swarm

2018:

The NYPD beekeeper vacuums up a swarm of bees on a hot dog stand in Times Square.

1906:

Bees take over a Los Angeles street as spectators watch.

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The World in Time

Jim Holt

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Jim Holt, author of When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought. More

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