The urban wilderness : A history of the American city

Titre

Sujet

Description

For a generation Sam Warner has written about American urban history by sketching the development of particular cities. A 1994 poll of urban history scholars identified him as the country's most influential urban historian and designated Urban Wilderness as one of the books they would recommend most strongly as an introduction to North American urban history.

Many urban historians write about cities as collective works of art, while others treat them as museums displaying famous structures, as political organizations, as economic engines, or as sites of population change. Warner gives due attention to all these aspects of urban history, but he examines cities especially as settings for human life, reflecting incessantly on how human life could improve through wise, historically informed public action.