In this second edition, America’s Urban History now includes contemporary analysis of race, immigration, and cities under the Trump administration and has been fully updated with new scholarship on early urbanization, mass incarceration and cities, the Great Society, the diversification of the suburbs, and environmental justice.
The United States is one of the most heavily urbanized places in the world, and its urban history is essential to understanding the fundamental narrative of American history. This book is an accessible overview of the history of American cities, including Indigenous settlements, colonial America, the American West, the postwar metropolis, and the present-day landscape of suburban sprawl and an urbanized population. It examines the ways in which urbanization is connected to divisions of society along the lines of race, class, and gender, but it also studies how cities have been sources of opportunity, hope, and success for individuals and the nation. Images, maps, tables, and a guide to further reading provide engaging accompaniment to illustrate key concepts and themes.
Spanning centuries of America’s urban past, this book’s depth and insight make it an ideal text for students and scholars in urban studies and American history.
Biography
Lisa Krissoff Boehm is Dean, College of Graduate Studies, and Professor of History and American Studies at Bridgewater State University. With Steven. H. Corey, she is co-editor of The American Urban Reader Second Edition (Routledge, 2020). Boehm is also the author of Popular Culture and the Enduring Myth of Chicago (2004) and Making a Way out of No Way: African American Women and the Second Great Migration (2009).
Steven H. Corey is Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Columbia College Chicago. He is co-editor, with Carl A. Zimring, of Coastal Metropolis: Environmental Histories of Modern New York City (2021) and with Lisa Krissoff Boehm of The American Urban Reader Second Edition (Routledge, 2020).
