Description: This book explores three dimensions of early modern citizens' writing about their cities: the diverse social backgrounds of the men and women who contributed to urban discourse; their notions of what made for a beautiful city; and their use of dialogue as a literary vehicle particularly apt for expressing city life and culture.
Review Quotes: "If you are interested in learning about early modern cities, James Amelang's Writing Cities will guide you expertly through town. You will explore new pathways in quest of a wide range of sources that Amelang has collected over years of research. Filled with copious endnotes and a 42-page bibliography, they are the midpoint for a future comprehensive book and a valuable gift to present-day scholars. Amelang's itinerary explores the authors, themes, and formats of early modern urban writing. We look at the social backgrounds of diverse authors and their views of what made a city beautiful from the late middle ages to 1800. Amelang also highlights the dialogue as a vehicle that reveals the dynamic give and take of urban society. At the end of our tour, we recognize what was singular or shared in the views of contemporaries who wrote about their cities."
https: //academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/127/4/1927/6998267--Susan E. Whyman, The American Historical Review
"Professor Amelang has shared his thought process to get the ball rolling and encourage other urban historians to seriously consider working in this vein. What the reader comes away with is the impression that here is a historian sharing his enjoyment in seeking to understand how people thought about urban spaces and their movement through them, both in their practical aspects and in thier play upon the imagination."--Marlene L. Eberhart, Sixteenth Century Journal