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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Painting of two statues in a grove of trees.

City of Seeds

By Daniel Mason

With an influx of people from all over the world, the city can become a hothouse for foreign flora.

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Map

City Narratives

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

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1666 | London

Most Horrid, Malicious, Bloody Flame

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

1866 | Atlantis

The Character Remains

Stumbling across a lost civilization.More

c. 1821 | Paris

Assaying a Crowd

Balzac gives an introduction to the world of necessary superfluities.More

Charts & Graphs

Official and unofficial city slogans,

Welcome to...

Official and unofficial city slogans.

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Danish author Hans Christian Andersen

Black and white photograph of French writer and film director Marguerite Duras.

Photograph of English novelist Charles Dickens.

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Photograph of Colin Dickey standing in front of a brick wall.

Italian poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio.

Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

The first requisite to happiness is that a man be born in a famous city.

—Euripides, c. 415 BC

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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