New World Cities

“New World Cities successfully makes the case that differences between North and South American cities should be measured in degree, not kind.”—Hispanic American Historical Review

“New World Cities is bold, important, and novel—such a study makes a unique and significant contribution to historical scholarship on the city in the Americas, one of the most urbanized parts of the world.”—James Brennan, author of The Labor Wars in Córdoba

“At last! A collection that places cities, with all their contradictions, at the center of the modern history of globalization.”—Richard Harris, President of the Urban History Association and author of Building a Market: The Rise of the Home Improvement industry, 1914-1960

“In the Americas, 80% of people now live in cities, and this timely volume takes stock of this epochal process of urbanization, ranging from Montreal to Buenos Aires. Its six perceptive and well-researched case studies explore the multiple meanings of modern urban life from environment and infrastructure to class and politics. Cities, especially big ones, are crucial nodes in global networks of culture and commerce, and this book’s insights help us grasp how that came to be and what it means for the twenty-first century.”—J. R. McNeill, coauthor of The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945