
The twentieth century in Europe was an urban century: it was shaped by life in, and the view from, the street. Women were not liberated in legislatures, but liberated themselves in factories, homes, nightclubs, and shops. Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini made themselves powerful by making cities ungovernable with riots rampaging through streets, bars occupied one-by-one. New forms of privacy and isolation were not simply a by-product of prosperity, but because people planned new ways of living, new forms of housing in suburbs and estates across the continent. Our proudest cultural achievements lie not in our galleries or state theatres, but in our suburban TV sets, the dance halls, pop music played in garages, and hip hop sung on our estates. In Streetlife, Leif Jerram presents a totally new history of the twentieth century, with the city at its heart, showing how everything distinctive about the century, from revolution and dictatorship to sexual liberation, was fundamentally shaped by the great urban centres which defined it.
This work investigates how the rapid urbanization of Europe during the twentieth century served as the primary catalyst for the continent's political, social, and cultural transformations. Leif Jerram, a historian specializing in urban history and European identity, utilizes a synthesis of archival research and social analysis to argue that the street, rather than the legislature, was the true site of historical change. He posits that the defining movements of the era—from political revolution to the evolution of private life—were fundamentally constructed within the physical and social constraints of the modern city.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and urban scholars frequently note the book's success in shifting the focus of twentieth-century history away from state-level politics toward the lived experience of the urban populace. Experts highlight this as a useful text for understanding the intersection of architecture, social movements, and political power in modern Europe.
Page Count:
487
Publication Date:
2011-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0191501182
ISBN-13:
9780191501180
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