La città oltre la nazione. Un urban turn per la storia contemporanea?

Autore: Francesco Bartolini
In: Storica. 65 • anno XXII, 2016
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Abstract

This article analyzes the growing interconnection between urban history and global history in the last two dec- ades. Within the new postnational approach to the history of the cities, two main trends have been emerging. On the one hand, especially outside Europe, some scholars have been trying to develop a kind of urban history based on the re- fusal of the Western narrative of modernization and focused on the experience of city-dwellers. On the other, world his- torians have been pointing out the role of the cities in the development of the global networks which have been ex- panding over the last two centuries. Both these approaches dissolve national borders, create new spaces, and reclaim a new de nition of “urban”. What could be the effects of this new urban history in the ongoing construction of a transna- tional contemporary history? The “urban” issue appears as a crucial challenge for experimenting a link between material reality, political space, and changing historical ideas about citizens, beyond Euro-centric perspectives.

Parole chiave: Storia urbana; Storia transnaziona- le; Città globali; Modernizzazione urbana

Keywords: Urban History; Transnational History; Global Cities; Urban Modernization