Spaces of Modernity: London's Geographies 1680-1780
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The image of modernity created in Spaces of Modernity is a coherent one....In all of the spaces he examines...Ogborn successfully navigates between the Scylla of grand theoretical claims and the Charybdis of the almost inevitably idiographic concerns of tradional historical geography. Any readers interested in adding to their deeper understanding of modernity will undoubtedly find Ogborn's exceeding well-written Odyssey riveting and rewarding....I could only marvel at the ease with which Ogborn weaves together the particular and the general into anew and exciting narrative." --Journal of Urban History "By moving smoothly from philosophical understandings of modernity, the individual, and the public sphere to geographies, stories, incidents, and objects in which these ideas can be seen at play, Ogborn tells a complex and fascinating tale. Ogborn has a wide range of analytical methods at his disposal and wields them all well, employing paintings, prints, maps, newspaper accounts, plays, and a wide variety of other texts to paint complex and lively vignettes of modernity in process." --Research in Philosophy and Technology "This book is important for the depth of its critical analysis of London's place (and the places of London) in the formulation of modernity....Those who wish to theoretically explore the fundamental changes that were taking place in eighteenth-century society, and how they were variously formulated in the London context, need to read this book attentively." --The London Journal "...offers consistently illuminating ways to examine transformations of institutions, experiences and identities. This book offers a clearly configured historical geography of eighteenth-century London that will be of considerable interest to historians, geographers and anyone else interested in the culture of the period." --Journal for Maritime Research "...takes a penetrating and fascinating look at...the idea of modernity...and by so doing breathes new life into the discipline of historical geography....Spaces of modernity offers us the best of what historical geography promises: to provide contextual and dynamic understandings of our past though interrogations of the specificity of space and place." --Progress in Human Geography "Ogborn offers his readers a richly varied view of modernity....The variety of contexts and institutions included in the compass of his book nicely illustrates an alternative to the totalizing and rationalizing view of modernity which he rejects." --Cahiers de Geographie du Quebec "[An] excellent study of the geographies of late 17th and 18th century London....Each...essay...is a beautifully constructed meditation on a dimension of the experience of modernity, carefully interpolating between theory and detailed contextual research....Spaces of Modernity is an enthralling and provocative tour through key sites in the making of the modern world." --Space & Polity "Ogborn's rich and imaginative study considers several particular spaces, places, and landscapes...to elucidate the social transformations that are diagnostic of modernity....Sensitively illustrated, profusely footnoted, and well indexed, this study is at once an interesting piece of historical research and a provocative theoretical statement. Upper-division undergraduates and above." --Choice
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Book Description
From the civility of Westminster's newly paved streets to the dangerous pleasures of Vauxhall Gardens and the grand designs of the Universal Register Office, this book examines the identities, practices, and power relations of the modern city as they emerged within and transformed the geographies of eighteenth-century London. Ogborn draws upon a wide variety of textual and visual sources to illuminate processes of commodification, individualization, state formation, and the transformation of the public sphere within the new spaces of the metropolis.
Spaces of Modernity: London's Geographies 1680-1780
Spaces of Modernity: London's Geographies 1680-1780,Miles Ogborn,The Guilford Press,1572303433,17th century,18th century,Architecture,Earth Sciences - Geography,England,Europe - Great Britain - General,History,History - General,History - General History,History Of Individual Cities,History: World,Human Geography,London,London (England),Public spaces,British & Irish history: c 1500 to c 1700,British & Irish history: c 1700 to c 1900,Cultural studies,London, Greater London,Social Science / Human Geography,TRAVEL & HOLIDAY,Urban communities,c 1600 to c 1700,c 1700 to c 1800
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