The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, c. 1482. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, c. 1482. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The City

Volume III, Number 4 | fall 2010

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Painting of a sunlit plaza with people and a bell tower.

Preamble

City Light

By Lewis H. Lapham

When it comes to the medieval cathedral and mosque, the modern skyscraper and the slum, world history is city history.

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Engraving of an overhead view of the city of Rome.

A Matter of Optics

By Warren Breckman

Rulers of cities have always had an interest in visibility, both in representing their power and in controlling people by seeing them.

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Map

City Narratives

The tumultuous histories of Algiers, Istanbul, Beijing, and Mexico City.

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c. 25 BC | Rome

Blueprint

Building a better forum.More

1666 | London

Most Horrid, Malicious, Bloody Flame

Samuel Pepys gives an eyewitness account of the Great Fire of London.More

c. 1864 | London

Street Noise

Charles Babbage wages a war on street musicians.More

Charts & Graphs

City Works

How to get a public project done.

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German socialist philosopher Friedrich Engels.

Black and white photograph of historian and man of letters Henry Adams.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

American writer, political activist, urban theorist, and historian Mike Davis.

English diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys.

Photograph of American journalist and novelist George Packer.

Towns oftener swamp one than carry one out onto the big ocean of life.

—D.H. Lawrence, 1908

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Lapham’s Quarterly Is on Hiatus

By Lapham’s Quarterly

But the American Agora Foundation is already planning for the future. More

The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.

DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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Terracotta funerary plaque, Greek, Attic, c. 520 BC.

The World in Time

Robert D. Kaplan

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power. More

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