Thomas V. Cohen

Cultural History of Early Modern European Streets Thomas V. Cohen

In urban life streets are elemental, but urban history seldom places them at centre stage. It tends to view them as mere backdrops for events or social relations, or to study them as material constructions, the fruit of urban planning, but largely vacant of inhabitants. Examining people and streets in tandem, the writers here strive towards more integrated urban history. They discuss the social and political processes of early modern street life, and the discursive play in which streets figured. Six chapters, based in Sweden-Finland, England, Portugal, Italy, and Transylvania, discuss the subtle interplay of material and immaterial, of public and private, of planned order and versatile, spontaneous invention, of control and resistance, all matters central to how streets worked. Contributors of this title include: Emese Balint, Maria Helena Barreiros, Elizabeth S. Cohen, Thomas Cohen, Alexander Cowan, Anu Korhonen, Riitta Laitinen, and Dag Lindstrom.