Between the Revolution and the Civil War, non-slave black Americans existed in the no-man’s land between slavery and freedom. The two generations defined by these two titanic struggles for national survival saw black Bostonians struggle to make real the quintessential values of individual freedom and equality promised by the Revolution. Levesque’s richly detailed study fills a significant void in our understanding of the formative years of black life in urban America. Black culture Levesque argues was both more and less than separation and integration. Poised between an occasionally...

Originally published in 1986, this work discusses the development in Dacca of western-style municipal organization and its financial and practical problems and also explores the economic transition of the city after 1840. It is one of the few urban studies which carries through from the ‘old order’ to the new administrative towns of British rule and attempts to show what happened to the communities of townsmen in the period of adaptation. It casts new light on the function and organization of Indian urban societies in the colonial period, on the transfer of western institutions and the...

First published in 1979, Urban Poverty in Britain 1830-1914 examines the plight of the poor in towns as a direct result of industrialization. This valuable study examines the major causes of poverty – low pay, casual labour, unemployment, sickness, widowhood, large families, old age, drink and personal failings – and society’s response to the problem. It also pays attention to the changes in food consumption brought about by migration to the urban areas. Detailed accounts of specific problems and specific situations are combined with a look at the broader questions, and...

Originally published in 1990, Signs of Change assess the people of San Francisco according to their own demonstrative standards through the visual symbols. Special attention is devoted to the visual perceptions of immigrants, those whose senses were not smothered by over-familiarity or protracted compliance with American mores. Immigration history is often studied in the concentrate exclusively on narrow connections between newcomers and their urban surroundings. The city has served as a data-base for the study of specific immigrant communities; frequently it has provided mere...

Originally published in 1981, Patterns of European Urbanisation Since 1500 examines urbanisation in Europe since 1500, paying particular attention to the underlying factors which govern the differentiated process of urbanisation. The book goes on to formulate some of the ways in which these factors can be generalised in an attempt to delineate the process of urbanisation in theoretic terms.