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Nights in the Big City

Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930

This elegantly written book describes the changes in the perception and experience of the night in three great European cities: Paris, Berlin and London. The lighting up of the European city by gas and electricity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought about a new relationship with the night, in respect of both work and pleasure. Nights in the Big City explores this new awareness of the city in all its ramifications.

Joachim Schlör has spent his days sifting through countless police and church archives, and first-hand accounts, and his nights exploring the highways and byways of these three great capitals. Illustrated with haunting and evocative photographs by, among others, Brandt and Kertész, and filled with contemporary literary references, Nights in the Big City has already been acclaimed in the German press as a milestone in the cultural history of the city.

"[Schlör] is erudite, and his literary style is alluring."—Architect’s Journal

Distribution by the University of Chicago Press only to customers in the USA and Canada. Customers elsewhere should visit the UK website of Reaktion Books.


352 pages | 6 x 9

Topographics

Culture Studies

Geography: Cultural and Historical Geography, Urban Geography


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Table of Contents

I. Contradictory Reports from Night in the Big City
II. A Beginning: Big City Nights Around 1840
Digression: In a New Light
III. Night and Security
IV. Night and Morality
V. Night-Walking
VI. And End: Big City Nights Around 1930
References
Bibliography
Index

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