Urban History: prospect and retrospect

Abstract

The appearance ofUrban Historyas a journal marks a further stage in the progression fromNewslettertoYearbookand now to a semi-annual periodical. The timing is apt since it coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of the first issue of theUrban History Newsletter, and the enthusiasm surrounding the production and publication ofUrban Historyis a continuing sign of the vigour and confidence expressed by H.J. Dyos thirty years ago, and again in 1974, when theYearbookfirst appeared. The current academic self-confidence is matched by a commercial one from the new publishers, Cambridge University Press.

Rethinking urban Wales

“…56 Richard Rodger has argued eloquently that urban biographies provide us with an eloquent conspectus of urbanity and its relationship with identity but it would need serious modification in order to apply to Wales. 57 Only now are we beginning to write the equivalent of urban biographies for valley towns which offer a way forward in this. 58 Again the distinctiveness of the Welsh urban experience shows the need for comparative studies and perhaps even more urgently than in the earlier periods.…”

História Urbana: a constituição de uma área de conhecimento

“…Entre as exceções, são de especial importância para os leitores interessados na história urbana latinoamericana: Morse, 1974;Socolow e Johnson, 1981;Greenfield, 1989;e Armus & Lear, 1998. Já existem alguns artigos que fazem balanços dessas duas publicações periódicas que continuam a ser as duas mais consolidadas e praticamente únicas com distribuição larga-mente internacional: Browell, 1984;Bloomfield, 1987;Rodger, 1992;Blumin, 1994;e Stave, 1994. Potencializadas pela língua, mas também pelo volume e qualidade do material já publicado.…”

“…Quanto às perspectivas de desenvolvimento, Richard Rodger (1992) vê na fragmentação de interesses um risco de empobrecimento da história urbana. Fragmentação pela constituição de grupos ligados a temáticas específicas, como por exemplo, períodos históricos de interesse, ou então grupos especificamente interessados em história do planejamento/urbanismo ou os grupos de morfologia urbana.…”

Water and the Making of Californian and Australian Cities: Introduction

“…The challenge for urban historians, as Richard Rodger argues, is to convey the complexity and peculiarities of a particular place, while also "revealing the mechanisms and dynamic qualities, both visible and invisible, which align one place with another, or indeed distinguish it from others." 19 Through the study of a single issue that is of universal relevance, water, this series of articles aims to combine detailed empirical case studies, in conjunction with broader processes. While the literature on urbanization in California and in Australia is extensive, comparative studies of the two are rare.…”