Urban Modernity

by Levin, Miriam R.; Forgan, Sophie; Hessler, Martina; Kargon, Robert H.; Low, Morris

• ISBN13: 9780262013987
• ISBN10: 0262013983
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-16
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

At the close of the nineteenth century, industrialization and urbanization marked the end of the traditional understanding of society as rooted in agriculture. Urban Modernityexamines the construction of an urban-centered, industrial-based culture-an entirely new social reality based on science and technology. The authors show that this invention of modernity was brought about through the efforts of urban elites-businessmen, industrialists, and officials-to establish new science- and technology-related institutions. International expositions, museums, and other such institutions and projects helped stem the economic and social instability fueled by industrialization, projecting the past and the future as part of a steady continuum of scientific and technical progress. The authors examine the dynamic connecting urban planning, museums, educational institutions, and expositions in Paris, London, Chicago, Berlin, and Tokyo from 1870 to 1930. In Third Republic Paris, politicians, administrators, social scientists, architects, and engineers implemented the future city through a series of commissions, agencies, and organizations; in rapidly expanding London, cultures of science and technology were both rooted in and constitutive of urban culture; in Chicago after the Great Fire, Commercial Club members pursued civic ideals through scientific and technological change; in Berlin, industry, scientific institutes, and the popularization of science helped create a modern metropolis; and in Meiji-era Tokyo (Edo), modernization and Westernization went hand in hand.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Dynamic Triad	p. 1
City, Exposition, and Museum in Industrial Society
Bringing the Future to Earth in Paris, 1851-1914	p. 13
From Modern Babylon to White City	p. 75
Science, Technology, and Urban Change in London, 1870-1914
The Counterrevolution of Progress	p. 133
A Civic Culture of Modernity in Chicago, 1880-1910
öDamned Always to Alter, but Never to Beö	p. 167
Berlin's Culture of Change Around 1900
Promoting Scientific and Technological Change in Tokyo, 1870-1930	p. 205
Museums, Industrial Exhibitions, and the City
Coda	p. 255
Index	p. 261
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