During the 1960s and 1970s, the growth of interest in the urban past was one of the most prominent developments in historical studies in the United Kingdom. In large part, this was due to the work of the late H. J. Dyos, Professor of Urban History at the University of Leicester, as teacher, writer and propagandist. This book brings together some of Dyos's most important and influential essays, written over nearly thirty years. At one level, this book may be read as a fitting memorial to the work, influence and writings of a first-rate historian; at another, it furnishes an indispensable guide...

Highly acclaimed in the original French edition, this landmark urban study of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries appears here for the first time in English. It provides one of the first synoptic views of the evolution of the French urban system before the Industrial Revolution by examining not only the major cities but the wider urban hierarchy. The innovations of this study lie in Lepetit's use of models of urban interaction and the unraveling of the complex spatial dimensions to urbanization.

This book offers the first survey of relations between town and country across Europe between the Black Death and the Enlightenment. Thirteen specially commissioned chapters give comprehensive coverage, from Spain to Sweden, and from the Polish Commonwealth to the Netherlands and Italy. Each chapter analyzes its country in the light of recent debates on state formation, urbanization, protoindustrialization, and the regional character of premodern economic growth. The Introduction discusses the historiographical and theoretical framework for systematic comparison, emphasizing how alternative...

Small towns comprised the great majority of urban settlements in pre-industrial Europe, but very little is known about them and their economic and social world. This is the first major work in English to give a pan-European perspective on the changing role of small towns from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Chapters by leading experts in the field look at small communities from the Hungarian Plain to western Ireland, from Sweden to Spain, and the general introduction provides a broad comparative perspective.

Verhulst examines fifteen towns, mainly situated on the rivers Meuse and Scheldt and along the North Sea coast of present day Belgium, Holland and France. He details the impact of political, military, ecclesiastical, economic and social factors on the development of towns from market towns to industrial centers. Arranged chronologically, the book charts the settlement and subsequent growth of the towns from the fourth to the twelfth centuries. Well illustrated with maps and with a full bibliography, this book will prove essential reading for students and scholars of historical and urban...

'Toccata and Fugue (ignite the sky)' is a book for the inquisitive, the contentious, the aficionado of ideas, and anyone else wielding opinions on why we are who we are. Douglas, a wealthy socialite with mother issues, lacks all conviction, but is full of certainty, especially about the value of gender lopsided sexual gatherings and other men's wives. His young friend, Robert, has doubts about everything, especially himself, but believes that there is, or should be, a moral order to life, although he isn't sure what it is. Starting from Douglas' position of certainty and Robert's of doubt,...