Round table details
Chair(s)
Maarten Prak (Universiteit Utrecht)
Panellists
Dorothee Brantz (Technische Universität Berlin), Penelope Davies (University of Texas, Austin), Patrick Lantschner (University College London) and Christina Williamson ( Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
Abstract
In late 2023 or early 2024, Cambridge University Press will publish a three-volume Cambridge Urban History of Europe. Each volume covers a distinct wave of urbanization in Europe. The first volume will cover Antiquity, the second volume will cover the Middle Ages and early modern period, and the third volume will take the story of urban Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. Each volume will contain chapters written by around forty experts, recruited all over the world, but especially in Europe, of course. These books are designed to present urban history in its present form to “ourselves”, i.e. urban historians, but more importantly to other historians, students and really everyone interested in one or more of the many aspects of Europe’s urban history.
In this roundtable session, the editors will present the Introductions they wrote for each volume. These will include the historiography the volumes contribute to, editorial choices that have been made in the design of the books, and broad conclusions about the urban history of Europe drawn from the material presented in the three volumes.