1st Edition
Festival Cities Culture, Planning and Urban Life
Biography
John R. Gold is Professor of Urban Historical Geography at Oxford Brookes University and Special Appointed Professor at Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan.
Margaret M. Gold is Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries at London Metropolitan University and also teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London.
‘This book is engaging and accessible. Throughout, individual chapters are supplemented with notes sections, many of which recommend further reading for those wishing to delve further into specific issues. Overall, it will be of interest to those coming to the study of festivals for the first time as well as to those interested in appreciating, and gaining deep insight into, the longstanding relationships that interlink the historical evolution of festivals and their host cities in the developed world.’
Bernadette Quinn in Journal of Festive Studies (2023).
'John and Margaret Gold’s latest book Festival Cities: Culture, Planning and Urban Life (Routledge, 2020) presents a valuable evolution of their earlier work on Cities of Culture...The historical description of the relationship between cities and events in the book provides a perspective often missing in contemporary event scholarship. One valuable insight is that the compulsion for cities to stage festivals is nothing new. Making provision for festivals and entertainment has always been a central responsibility of the city. The book, therefore, traces the idea of ‘festivalization’ back to the 1930s and even earlier, long before it became a fad among postmodern scholars.’
Greg Richards in the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events (2023).
‘Festival Cities by John and Margaret Gold offers a place-based, thoroughly-researched historical perspective on city festivals. The book interrogates the cultural roots of these events and their impact on the life of host cities. Through plenty of examples from across Europe and beyond, and encompassing modern and contemporary events, the main goal of the book is to explore art festivals and carnivals in relation to culture, place and economy, and to understand how festivals have become embedded into the life and planning of host cities. The book refreshingly responds to long-lasting calls in the field for contextualizing the study of major events in relation to the history, values and meanings of host cities and communities, by building stronger links with factors from the past and present of these localities that contribute to shaping these events. ... Building on the authors’ long-established research on major and mega events, this book targets a wide range of scholars in the emerging interdisciplinary field of event studies, such as urban planners, human geographers, urban historians, sociologists and anthropologists, researchers in areas such as cultural policy, visual and performing arts, and the ‘city of culture’ debate in particular in the UK and Europe. Because of its accessibility and rich historical accounts, the book is also to be recommended to MA and PhD students from a range of subject areas who are interested in the symbolic aspects of art festivals and carnivals and in their mutual relationships with the city's life.’
Enrico Tommarchi, in European Planning Studies (2023).
