"An original history of the most enduring colonial creation, the city, explored through ten portraits of powerful urban centers the British Empire left in its wake. At its peak, the British Empire was an urban civilization of epic proportions, leaving behind a network of cities which now stand as the economic and cultural powerhouses of the twenty-first century. In a series of ten vibrant urban biographies that stretch from the shores of Puritan Boston to Dublin, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Liverpool, and beyond, acclaimed historian Tristram Hunt demonstrates that urbanism is in fact the most lasting of Britain's imperial legacies. Combining historical scholarship, cultural criticism, and personal reportage, Hunt offers a new history of empire, excavated from architecture and infrastructure, from housing and hospitals, sewers and statues, prisons and palaces. Avoiding the binary verdict of empire as 'good' or 'bad,' he traces the collaboration of cultures and traditions that produced these influential urban centers, the work of an army of administrators, officers, entrepreneurs, slaves, and renegades. In these ten cities, Hunt shows, we also see the changing faces of British colonial settlement: a haven for religious dissenters, a lucrative slave-trading post, a center of global hegemony. Lively, authoritative, and eye-opening, Cities of Empire makes a crucial new contribution to the history of colonialism"--
- ISBN10 1250069394
- ISBN13 9781250069399
- Publish Date 10 November 2015 (first published 25 November 2014)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 18 August 2016
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Picador USA
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 576
- Language English