By Cyrus Schayegh, The Graduate Institute Geneva How has the modern world been formed spatially? Historians have pored over that question for the last two hundred years. From the mid-nineteenth century and deep into the twentieth, many concentrated on nation-states; … Continue reading
By Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, University of California, Riverside Africa’s cities are now among the fastest growing in the world. But how well are their pre-colonial origins understood? Recent research on Lagos’s past reveals a thriving, indigenous yet cosmopolitan urban community, one … Continue reading
Lasse Heerten, Freie Universität Berlin, and Daniel Tödt, Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin Let’s judge some books by their covers. In the recently flourishing literature on global and imperial history, port cities have become ubiquitous icons, visual shorthand … Continue reading
By Francesca Biancani, University of Bologna In modern cities, flows of people, capital, and desires intermingled and structured a new spatial order. Straight streets, airy boulevards, agreeable parks, coffee houses, and taverns constituted the backdrop of a new type of … Continue reading
Sana Aiyar, Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015, 384 pp., $49.95 / £36.95 / €45.00. Reviewed by Saima Nasar, University of Birmingham Indians have contributed to Kenya’s multiracial tapestry for centuries. At Independence, … Continue reading
Guadalupe García, Beyond the Walled City: Colonial Exclusion in Havana, Oakland: University of California Press, 2016, 296 pp., $34.95, £24.95 ISBN: 9780520286047 Reviewed by Cecilia T. Fernández, Freie Universität Berlin Strolling through Havana’s so-called “casco histórico,” its colonial center, can … Continue reading
Liora Bigon, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Reflecting on Africa’s urban past in the context of African history and as part of a global phenomenon is a challenging mission situated at the intersection of three subfields of research: African history, … Continue reading
Philipp Kandler, Freie Universität Berlin, and Thomas Lindner, Max Planck Institute for Human Development The global history of cities is en vogue at the moment. Increasing numbers of historians interested in global history turn to cities as spaces of connectedness … Continue reading
Emer O’Dwyer, Oberlin College In January of this year, Miura Hideyuki, a journalist for the Asahi shinbun, was awarded the Kaikō Ken Memorial Nonfiction Prize for his work of reportage, Five-Colored Rainbow (Goshiki no niji, Shūeisha, 2015). In it, Miura … Continue reading
Marc Matera, Black London: The Imperial Metropolis and Decolonization in the Twentieth Century, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015, 414 pp., $29.95 / £22.95, ISBN: 9780520284302 Kennetta Hammond Perry, London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship and the … Continue reading
