Teaching Urban History in Europe/l'Enseignement de L'histoire Urbaine en Europe

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TEACHING URBAN HISTORY IN EUROPE - L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE L’HISTOIRE URBAINE
THE CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
TEACHING URBAN HISTORY IN EUROPE
L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE L’HISTOIRE URBAINE
Denis Menjot and Richard Rodger have assembled an impressive team EN EUROPE
of knowledgeable scholars and teachers in the field of urban history.
As the European Union countries consider the challenges of urbanism Richard Rodger and Denis Menjot
in the 21st century these expert assessments of university courses on the Editors
historical development of towns and cities take on greater significance.
This is especially so in the context of new undergraduate and MA courses
that are being designed at present.
Almost all the urban concerns of the present are embedded in actions
and decisions of the past. We need to understand better this past if we are
to address the concerns of the present, and indeed of the future. Teaching
students about our urban past, therefore, is an essential first step.
Lars Nilsson, President of the European Urban History Association
This book is an important project for the European Urban History

Association, and is one that I wholeheartedly endorse. It represents a
recognition that the education of future generations of students is crucial
if we are to deal successfully with issues of heritage, urban planning,
environmental sustainability, public order and social welfare – indeed
almost all the issues that confront residents of contemporary urban society.
Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki, Past-President, European Urban History

Association
Cover illustration: Manchester from a steel engraving by T. Higham, drawn

by G. Pickering, c.1850. Reproduced by kind permission of the Centre for
English Local History, Leicester.
Rodger and Menjot
ISBN 1-870664-23-X
ESSAYS IN URBAN HISTORY

TEACHING URBAN HISTORY IN EUROPE - L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE L’HISTOIRE URBAINE
THE CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
Denis Menjot and Richard Rodger have assembled an impressive team EN EUROPE
of knowledgeable scholars and teachers in the field of urban history.
As the European Union countries consider the challenges of urbanism Richard Rodger and Denis Menjot
in the 21st century these expert assessments of university courses on the Editors
historical development of towns and cities take on greater significance.
This is especially so in the context of new undergraduate and MA courses
that are being designed at present.
Almost all the urban concerns of the present are embedded in actions
and decisions of the past. We need to understand better this past if we are
to address the concerns of the present, and indeed of the future. Teaching
students about our urban past, therefore, is an essential first step.
Lars Nilsson, President of the European Urban History Association
This book is an important project for the European Urban History

Association, and is one that I wholeheartedly endorse. It represents a
recognition that the education of future generations of students is crucial
if we are to deal successfully with issues of heritage, urban planning,
environmental sustainability, public order and social welfare – indeed
almost all the issues that confront residents of contemporary urban society.
Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki, Past-President, European Urban History

Association
Cover illustration: Manchester from a steel engraving by T. Higham, drawn

by G. Pickering, c.1850. Reproduced by kind permission of the Centre for
English Local History, Leicester.
Rodger and Menjot
ISBN 1-870664-23-X
ESSAYS IN URBAN HISTORY

Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester
The Centre for Urban History publishes 'Papers in Urban History', an occasional
paperback series of research monographs, occasional papers, and edited
collections. These are available from the CUH at the price of ¤12 each.
Titles include:
Penelope Lane and Jon Stobart (eds)

Urban and Industrial Change in the Midlands, 1700-1840 (2000)
ISBN: 1 870664 21 3
E. T. Jones, J. Laughton and P. Clark

Northampton in the Late Middle Ages:
The Archaeology and History of a Midlands Town (2000)
ISBN: 1 870664 20 5
P. Clark and J. Hosking,

Population Estimates of English Small Towns 1550-1851 (rev. ed 1999)
P. Clark,
Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (1996)
E. Jones,
Transport Systems in and around the East Midlands c.1300-1550 (1996)
Rionach Ni Neill (ed)

Town and Countryside in Western Europe 1500-1939 (1996)
ISBN: 1 870664 15 9
Nick Jewson (ed)

Migration Processes and Ethnic Divisions (1995)
Yvonne Rooney and Henrietta O'Connor

The Spatial Distribution of Ethnic Minority Communities in Leicester, 1971, 1981
and 1991: Analysis and Interpretation: Maps and Tables (1995)
Peter Clark and Penelope Corfield (eds)

Industry and Urbanisation in Eighteenth Century England (1994)
ISBN: 1 870664 08 6
Barry Haynes and P. Clark

Register of European Urban History Teaching, Research and Publications (1991)
For information about CUH staff and PhD research projects,

as well as data sets and images, visit: http://www.le.ac.uk/urbanhist/
To order publications listed above contact:

Centre for Urban History
University of Leicester,
Leicester LE1 7RH
or tell 00 44 (0)116 252 2378

The Centre for Urban History publishes 'Papers in Urban History', an occasional
paperback series of research monographs, occasional papers, and edited
collections. These are available from the CUH at the price of ¤12 each.
Titles include:
Penelope Lane and Jon Stobart (eds)

Urban and Industrial Change in the Midlands, 1700-1840 (2000)
ISBN: 1 870664 21 3
E. T. Jones, J. Laughton and P. Clark

Northampton in the Late Middle Ages:
The Archaeology and History of a Midlands Town (2000)
ISBN: 1 870664 20 5
P. Clark and J. Hosking,

Population Estimates of English Small Towns 1550-1851 (rev. ed 1999)
P. Clark,
Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (1996)
E. Jones,
Transport Systems in and around the East Midlands c.1300-1550 (1996)
Rionach Ni Neill (ed)

Town and Countryside in Western Europe 1500-1939 (1996)
ISBN: 1 870664 15 9
Nick Jewson (ed)

Migration Processes and Ethnic Divisions (1995)
Yvonne Rooney and Henrietta O'Connor

The Spatial Distribution of Ethnic Minority Communities in Leicester, 1971, 1981
and 1991: Analysis and Interpretation: Maps and Tables (1995)
Peter Clark and Penelope Corfield (eds)

Industry and Urbanisation in Eighteenth Century England (1994)
ISBN: 1 870664 08 6
Barry Haynes and P. Clark

Register of European Urban History Teaching, Research and Publications (1991)
For information about CUH staff and PhD research projects,

as well as data sets and images, visit: http://www.le.ac.uk/urbanhist/
To order publications listed above contact:

University of Leicester,
Leicester LE1 7RH
or tell 00 44 (0)116 252 2378

EN EUROPE
Richard Rodger
and
Denis Menjot
Editors

Leicester 2006
ii
Contents
Acknowledgements v
European Association of Urban History vi
List of Tables and Figures viii
Notes on Contributors ix
1 Introduction: Studying an Urban World 1

Richard Rodger and Denis Menjot
Selected studies
2 United Kingdom 11
Richard Rodger
3 Netherlands 31
Pim Kooij
4 France 39
Frédéric Moret and Denis Menjot
5 Spain 45
Isabel del Val Valdivieso and Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu
6 Portugal 51
Amélia Aguiar Andrade
7 Greece 65
Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki et Marianthi Kotea
8 Italy 79
Paola Lanaro and Giovanni Favero
9 Hungary 87
Erika Szívós
10 Poland 99
Halina Manikowska and Urszula Sowina
11 Sweden 105
Lars Nilsson
iii
12 Germany 111
Heinz Reif
Reactions and Opportunities

13 Studying urban history: a student’s perspective 117
Claire Townsend
14 The role of multimedia websites in teaching

and research 121
José-Maria Cardesin and Manuel Penedo
Index 133
iv
Acknowledgements
The Editors wish to record their thanks to three individuals in the

Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester: Andrew Hann for his
assistance with the formatting and editing of these papers, Julie Deeming
for her translation of chapter 12, and to Kate Crispin for her assistance in
managing the distribution of this book. They also acknowledge the
financial support from the Centre for Urban History and the European
Urban History Association, as well as support for the project from the
past president of that organisation, Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki.
v
European Urban History Association
The Association was established in 1989 with the support of European

Union. Conferences are organised every two years. These biannual
conferences provide a multidisciplinary forum for historians, sociologists,
geographers, anthropologists, art and architectural historians, economists,
planners and all others working on different aspects of urban history.
The members of the Committee of the EUHA are listed below and act as
conduits for urban history activities within their country and region, and
between corresponding members of other countries. Many have organised
one of the bi-annual conferences and are therefore networked into a
variety of areas. They act as a first point of contact for scholars within
their sphere of responsibility in helping to advance the study of urban
history. The EUHA also has a good track record in encouraging, and
offering limited financial assistance, to graduate students in European
countries who are studying for a PhD and wish to attend, and indeed
contribute, to the bi-annual conference proceedings.
International Committee of the European Urban History Association
Maurice Aymard (Paris) Marc Boone (Ghent)

Donatella Calabi (Venice) Peter Clark (Helsinki)
Pim Kooij (Groningen) Luda Klusakova (Prague)
Denis Menjot (Lyon) Robert Morris (Edinburgh)
Lars Nilsson (Stockholm) Heinz Reif (Berlin)
Richard Rodger (Leicester) Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki (Athens)
Clemens Wischerman (Konstanz)
In some countries there are also national associations of urban history

that promote the historical study of towns and cities. These usually
produce journals or newsletters, occasionally both, and have extensive
membership lists and points of contact. There are also a number of
institutions that complement the national organisations by providing
organisational support through web sites, financial contributions,
conference organisation, hosting meetings, and as a focus for the
development of urban history generally. Perhaps the most prominent
are the Institute for Urban History (Stockholm); Maison de Sciences de
l’Homme (Paris); and the Centre for Urban History (Leicester).
vi
Through the EUHA and through independent initiatives too, the
historical study of towns and cities is advanced. However, organisations
remain vigorous only if they renew themselves and their areas of interest
and one means of doing so is to participate in the national urban history
organisation and in the European one too. ‘Join in’, then, is the message
from the EUHA committee and the national associations of urban history.
vii
List of Tables and Figures
Figure 2.1 Student Texts: Readers in Urban History
Figure 2.2 On Line and On Screen: TLTP Teaching Materials

for the 18th Century Town
Figure 2.3 Numbers Attending Urban History Group

Conferences
Table 8.1 Location and title of courses
Table 8.2 Faculties and titles of courses
Table 8.3 Faculties and the academic status of teachers
Table 8.4 Academic status of teachers and course level
Table 8.5 Chronological scope of course contents
Table 8.6 Textbooks chosen for more than one course
viii
Notes on Contributors
Amélia Aguiar Andrade is Assistant Professor and Senior Lecturer in

Portuguese Medieval History at the New University of Lisbon(Nova) and
formerly guest professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST)
(Engineering Faculty of the Technical University of Lisbon). Andrade is
the author of several books and articles about the Portuguese medieval
town such as O castelo e a feira- a terra de Santa Maria nos séculos XI
a XIII (1989) (with José Mattoso and Luís Krus); Atlas da Cidades
Medievais Portuguesas (1990) (with A H Oliveira Marques and Iria
Gonçalves, 1990); A construção medieval do território (2001) and
Horizontes Urbanos Medievais (2004).
Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History

at the University of Cantabria. Her research work has centred on the
urban medieval environment in the north of Castile. Currently heading
the Atlas of Medieval Towns in the Basque Country, the first volume of
which is devoted to Bilbao, she has published several works on the
medieval world and has taken part in congresses and scientific meetings
throughout Europe. She is part of a European research team investigating
ports in the Bay of Biscay.
José María Cardesín is Professor of the History of Social Movements

and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Sociology at the University of A
Coruña, Spain. Cardesin is also Director of the Urban Studies Workshop
there. Research interests lie primarily in the analysis of urban processes
from a multidisciplinary perspective and in the use of multimedia
resources applied to the social sciences. Currently he coordinates the
building of a website on the Urban Renewal Programmes in the Spanish
municipality of Ferrol. In 2004 he was awarded the Dyos Prize for his
article ‘A tale of two cities: the memory of Ferrol between the Navy and
the working class, published in the journal Urban History.
ix
Giovanni Favero (1969) has a PhD in urban history and is now assistant
professor in economic history at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Favro
has published work on historical demography and the history of municipal
statistics, including Le misure del Regno: Direzione di statistica e municipi
nell’Italia liberale, (Padova, 2001); Gli abitanti del ghetto di Venezia in
età moderna: dati e ipotesi, (2004) (with Francesca Trivellato); ‘Venezia
nel Novecento’, in G. Dalla Zuanna, A. Rosina, F. Rossi, eds., Il Veneto:
storia della popolazione in età contemporanea, (Venezia, 2004).
Marianthi Kotea is Lecturer, in the Department of Sociology, Panteion

University of Social and Political Sciences and her specialist area of research
is concerned with the formation of cities and the modernization of Hellenic
society in the nineteenth century. Kotea’s interests also include theoretical
aspect of urbanisation, and the administrative frameworks and the
formation of urban networks in 19th Hellenic society. Recent publications
include the jointly edited collections with L. Sapounaki-Dracaki) on
European Urban Historiography. Trends and Perspectives (Athens 2004)
and Greek Cities in Historical Perspective (Athens 2005), including a
chapter on ‘Hellenic urban historiography in the newly-established state.’
Pim Kooij is Professor in Economic and Social History at Groningen

University and professor in Agricultural History at Wageningen University.
Kooij’s research at both universities revolves around the relations between
towns and the countryside and is also involved in writing the histories of
individual Dutch cities and the interactions between cities (networks,
migration). He is the secretary of the European Association of Urban
Historians. A number of his publications are mentioned in the text. Beside
these he edited, , Regional capitals. Past, Present, Prospects (1994) (with
Piet Pellenbarg) and in another collaboration with Paul van de Laar wrote
‘The Randstad conurbation: a floating metropolis in the Dutch Delta’
(https://ep.eur.nl/handle/1765/1028 ).
Paola Lanaro is Professor in Economic History at Ca’ Foscari University

of Venice since 2001. She teaches currently economic history, business
history (from the middle ages to the contemporary period), and urban
history. She is member of the board of AISU ( Italian Association of Urban
History), gives courses at Paris VII and was a visiting professor at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 1999. Her fields of
research are the economic and social history of Europe in late middle
ages and early modern times, with particular reference to Italy, and the
Venetian State. Currently is engaged in research on trade and manufacture.
x
She has published essays in Italian and international journals, such as
Società e storia, Studi veneziani, Renaissance Studies, and the Journal
of Urban History. Recent publications include ‘Lo spazio delle fiere e dei
mercati nella città italiana di età moderna’ (with D. Calabi) in S.
Cavaciocchi ( a cura di), Fiere e mercati nella integrazione delle economie
europee secc. XIII-XVIII, (Firenze 2001); ‘L”Europa delle città”::una
riflessione,’ Società e Storia, n.92, 2001; ‘Economic space and urban
policies: fairs and markets in the Italy of the early Modern Age, Journal
of Urban History, 30, 2003.
Halina Manikowska is Professor of Italian History at Warsaw

University and the Head of Medieval Studies at the Institute of History of
the Polish Academy of Sciences. Manikowska has published The Control
and the Punishment. Power and Society in the Late Medieval Florence
(Warsaw 1993) and numerous articles on medieval towns in Central
Europe. She is the Editor of Roczniki Dziejów Spo_ecznych i
Gospodarczych (Social and Economic History Annals).
Denis Menjot is Professor of Medieval History at the Université Lumière-

Lyon 2, Director of the Unité Mixte de Recherches Histoire et archéologie
des mondes chrétiens et muslmans médiévaux. His main fields of research
are the economic, social and political history of Castilian cities in late middle
ages. Menjot’s recent publications in urban history include Murcie
castillane (1243-milieu du XVe). Une ville au temps de la frontière 2 vols.
(Madrid 2002); La Ville médiévale in Histoire de l’Europe Urbaine (Paris
2003) (with Patrick Boucheron); La fiscalité des villes au Moyen Age
(Occident méditerranéen) 1. Etude des sources. 2. Les systèmes fiscaux,
3. La redistribution de l’impôt, 4. La gestion de l’impôt., (Toulouse, 1996-
2005) with Manuel Sánchez Martínez. He is editor (with Jean-Luc Pinol)
de la collection Villes chez l’Harmattan in Paris.
Frédéric Moret is Maître de Conférences of Contemporary History at

the University of Marne la Vallée (France). After a thesis on ‘The Socialists
and the City. Great-Britain, France 1820-1850’ (Les Socialistes et la ville.
Grande-Bretagne, France 1820-1850, ENS éditions, 1999) he studied the
debates about the construction of the fortifications of Paris during the
July Monarchy. Moret’s work is largely concerned with comparative urban
history with research directed towards the relationships between the state
and the cities of Britain, Belgium, France during the first half of the 19th
century. Frédéric Moret is General Secretary of the French Society for
Urban History.
xi
Lars Nilsson is Professor of Urban History at Stockholm University
and Director for the Institute of Urban History. His main research areas
have been the modern Swedish urbanisation process and urban
development in a Nordic and European context. Nilsson is at the moment
President of the European Association for Urban History and organiser
of the forthcoming Eighth International Conference on Urban History
taking place in Stockholm 2006. He was chief editor and co-author for
the jubilee book Staden på vattnet – Stockholm 1252-2002 in two volumes
for the celebration of Stockholm’s 750 years anniversary in 2002. Other
recent publications are ‘The return to the city: reflections on Swedish
urban development in the late 20th century’, Reclaiming the City:
Innovation. Culture, Experience, Marjaana Niemi and Ville Vuolanto, eds.,
(Helsinki 2003); ’Städtische Verwaltungsreform und Sozialpolitik als
Vorbereitung des Wohlfahrtsstaates: Stockholm und Kopenhagen 1860-
1930’, Jahrbuch für Europäische Wervaltungsgeschichte 16, 2004.
Manuel G. Penedo has a PhD in Physics and is a Professor in the

Computer Science Department in the University of A Coruña, Spain. He is
Director of the VARPA Research Group, and current research interests
include computer vision, pattern recognition, biomedical image processing
and perceptual grouping. Recent publications include: ‘3D Object
Reconstruction using Growing Self-Organised Networks’, in A. Sanfeliu,
J.F. Martínez and J.A Carrasco, eds., Progress in Pattern Recognition, Image
Analysis and Applications: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3287, 2004;
‘Topological Active Volumes for Segmentation and Shape Reconstruction
of Medical Images’, in A. Campilho and M. Kamel, (eds.), Image Analysis
and Recognition: Lecture Notes in Computer Science; 3212, 2004.
Heinz Reif is Professor of Modern History at the Technical University

in Berlin. He is also Director of the Centre for Metropolitan Studies and
the Transatlantic Graduate Research Program Berlin – New York which is
concerned with the history and culture of the metropolis in the 20th
century. Reif is a committee member of the European Urban History
Association and the German Society of Urban History and Research on
Urbanization, member of the Berlin Historical Commission, co-editor of
the Journal Information on Modern Urban History and the Yearbook of
Economic History and Berlin in History and Present. His research is
focussed on urban history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the social and
economic history of the industrialization, the history of the nobilities
and the elites of the 18th to 20th centuries; and exhibition concepts for
several museums.
xii
Richard Rodger is Professor of Urban History and Director of the
Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester. In 2004 he was elected
to membership of the British Academy of Social Sciences. For some time
his interests have been in the nature of urban history and in efforts to
encourage the study of urban history by resulted in books on European
Urban History: Prospect and Retrospect (1993), resources such as A
Consolidated Bibliography of Urban History (1994) and, since 2000, as
Director of a project to collect oral testimony as a means to develop
contemporary urban history. As Editor of Urban History and General
Editor (with Jean-Luc Pinol) of a series under the title Historical Urban
Studies, Rodger has continued to encourage new work and innovative
approaches to urban history. His most recent books have been The
Transformation of Edinburgh: Land Property and Trust in the Nineteenth
Century (2001) and Cities of Ideas: Civil Society and Urban Governance
in Britain 1800-2000 (2004).
Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki is Assistant Professor of Urban History at

Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens and has
also lectured at the Institute of Urbanism, University Pierre Mendés-France,
Grenoble. Recent publications include the editorships of both European
Urban Historiography Trends and Perspectives, (Athens 2004 (with Kotea)
and of Greek Cities Historical Perspective (Athens 2005). Sapounaki-
Dracaki is also the author of Economic Development and Health Care:
The Emergence of Health Services in Piraeus and the Tzaneio Municipal
Hospital (Athens 2005) and was President of the European Association
of Urban History 2002-04.
Urszula Sowina is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology

and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw and associate
researcher at the Centre d’Histoire des Techniques du Conservatoire
National des Arts et Métiers, Paris. Her research is on the history of
mediaeval towns: socio-topography, economics, legal systems, history of
material culture in archaeology of mediaeval towns. Current fields of
investigations are concerned with water supply systems in Polish towns
in the 15th and 16th centuries, and inventories of burghers from Cracow
in the same period. Sowina’s recent publications include ‘De l’eau pour
la ville: Le Livre des Fontaines de J. Le Lieur (Rouen 1524-1525), Etudes
Normandes, 2 , 2001; and ‘Les eaux qui charrient la mort et les désastres:
inondations et pollution des eaux dans les villes polonaises aux XVème
et XVIème siècles’ G. Massard-Guilbaud, H. Platt, D. Schott, eds., Cities
and Catastrophes (Frankfurt 2002).
xiii
Erika Szívós is Assistant Professor at the Department of Economic and
Social History at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. She teaches
courses on Central European social and cultural history in the 19th and
20th centuries, and on the urban history and urban architecture of the
region, especially interested in Budapest, Vienna, Prague and other Central
European capitals. In the 1990s Szívós pursued studies at University of
Leicester, UK, and then at Boston University, USA and completed a Ph.D.
in Hungary in 2004. Her dissertation titled ‘Dubious professions: the
professionalisation of the fine arts in fin-de-siècle Hungary will be published
as a monograph. Other publications in urban history include an edited
´´
issue Muvészet a Városban [Art in the City] for Budapesti Negyed [Budapest
Quarterly], IX (2001); ‘Városvezeto ´´ elit Pesten a 18-19. század fordulóján’
[Urban elite in the city of Pest in the late-18th and early 19th century]
Tanulmányok Budapest pest Múltjából, XXV (1996); and ‘A másik Bécs: az
osztrák századforduló változó képe a Schorske utáni történetírásban’ [The
other Vienna: changing representations of the Austrian fin-de-siècle in post-
Schorskean historiography], AETAS, XII (2001).
Claire Townsend completed her PhD at the Centre for Urban History
at the University of Leicester in 2005. Her research considers regional
development in the East Midlands in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries and focuses particularly on the social and economic linkages
between towns and their hinterlands. Forthcoming publications include
articles in the Journal of Historical Geography and Cultural and Social
History. Future research will focus on the soundscapes of eighteenth-
century English towns.
Isabel del Val Valdivieso is Professor in Medieval History at the

University of Valladolid. She is a corresponding member of both the
Spanish and Portuguese Academies of History. Specialising in 15th social
history, her research work has focused on the Crown of Castile, in
particular dealing with issues related to urban history. Prominent is her
work on Medina del Campo and the Basque Country. She has lectured
and taken part in congresses and courses in various European and Latin-
American countries. She currently heads a team researching into ‘water
in medieval cities.
xiv
1
Introduction:
Studying an Urban World
Richard Rodger and Denis Menjot
and Université de Lyon 2
From ancient civilisations in the Middle East, China and the Far East, to
more recent civilisations in Europe, concentrated settlements have played
a prominent role in human existence. Density and proximity, twin
characteristics of an urban world, have defined human behaviour throughout
time. In the twentieth-first century, with a preponderance of the world’s
population now residing in towns and cities and thus defined as ‘urban’ by
United Nations, the study of the urban condition is all the more pressing.
Contemporary cities are commonly represented in newspapers and on

TV screens as in ‘crisis’ because of their congestion and corruption; they are
damned for their architectural brutalism and a lack of creative imagination,
condemned for the decline of civil society and shared community values,
pilloried for their polluted environments, and targeted by terrorists for
political purposes1 . European newspapers and TV retell and retail stories
of doom and gloom. Are these ‘crises’ real? Are they manufactured? How
can ‘cities of culture’ co-exist with such a dismal public image for the
contemporary city? Do not the flamboyant festivals, jazz concerts,
international exhibitions and sporting competitions hosted in our cities
conflict with this image of ‘crisis’? Is there an ideal number for the population
of a town or city, as planners have often argued in the twentieth century?
1
Crises de l’urbain, futur de la ville, colloque de Royaumont, (Paris 1985)
1
Teaching Urban History in Europe
So rarely has the study of urban history seemed more relevant, more
urgent, more necessary. Yet understanding current issues in the context of
their historical antecedents is vital, first because our public servants and
politicians are disposed to act with partial knowledge, and secondly, because
there are few genuinely new urban problems and our public servants
disregard historical precedent at their - and our - peril. Congestion, urban
environmental contamination, political corruption, low quality buildings,
infringements of individual interests, moral panics and shifting values, fads
and fashions were all features of eighteenth and former centuries. To be
more specific: how can civil servants and urban planners develop a heritage
strategy or a policy for inner city regeneration without knowledge of how
buildings, the spaces between them and human behaviour interacted?
The urban agenda, therefore, is one saturated with intrinsic human

interest as well as of relevance to contemporary life. Students - and the
general public and especially politicians - need these contexts to comprehend
the worlds they inhabit, and urban history offers insights and perspectives
of value to them all. Since a majority of Europeans have for long shared an
urban lifestyle, then there is particular interest in understanding the processes
and outcomes that have shaped the contemporary world. The ‘urban’ is,
therefore, not only a legitimate unit of analysis but an essential one for
historians and other disciplines, and the flourishing range and number of
publications concerned with cities is a testimony to this.
With the conviction that towns and cities merit increasing attention in
the curriculum of European universities, and in the context of re-thinking
the syllabus in the light of the Bologna Agreements and new structures of
instruction in many countries, the European Urban History Association
sponsored a ‘stock-taking’ of urban history teaching in various countries.
This resulted, firstly, in a panel dedicated to the topic at the 7th International
Conference on Urban History in Athens, October 2004. Secondly, it resulted
in the essays published here. Naturally, the views expressed are those of
individual authors and are by definition subjective, but in each case they
rest on experience, often many years of experience, and in all cases upon
a knowledge of how, where, and in what form urban history is taught in
their country. In gathering information about the teaching of urban history
in their own country each author has used a combination of a questionnaire
issued by the editors of this volume and printed in the appendix to this
chapter, statistical analyses of courses and students in their own country
using published data and web based surveys, and consultations with
colleagues in national associations of urban history.
2
Introduction: Studying an Urban World
Of the conclusions that emerge from these short essays it might be

useful to highlight five:
1. In many countries the study of urban history is still in its infancy

and shows positive signs of awakening, especially amongst younger
scholars. There is also an unmistakeable interest developing amongst
teachers of urban history in central Europe.
2. Urban history is rarely itself the basis of specialist degree or diploma

entitled ‘BA in Urban History’ or ‘MA in Urban History.’ More commonly
it is embedded as part of a broader curriculum of historical studies.
3. The restructuring of graduate education consistent with the principles

of the ‘Bologna Agreements’, though varying in their implementation
according to country and institution, offers a real prospect to raise
the profile of urban history at the graduate level and to position it
firmly in the humanities and social sciences curriculum.
4. Technical changes in the modes of delivery offer opportunities to

communicate with new groups of students, and with the general
public. More specifically, web-based teaching utilising digital
resources and inter-university collaborations specifically developed
by and for urban historians will in the future deliver considerable
benefits to the teaching of urban history. However, because of the
nature of the skills associated with digital technologies and web-
based materials, more team work and collaborative projects within
and between university departments will be necessary to secure
maximum impact for both teaching and research in urban history.
5. Disciplinary diversity - history, economics, geography, architecture,

sociology, urban planning, art and landscape studies, computing,
and ecology to name a few that appear in the authors’ texts - is still
regarded by teachers of urban history as a strength, bringing
complementary perspectives to bear on the ‘urban variable.’ As a
cautionary point, however, the institutional structures of
universities determine patterns of delivery in terms of teaching.
Consequently, teachers of urban history need to be imaginative in
overcoming administrative rigidities. To do so they have to consider
how to deliver urban history courses, for example, through co-
operative teaching programmes involving academic staff from
several universities within the same country, through Summer
Schools and joint PhD training programmes as exists within
3
ESTER2 , and through thematic programmes of study for Erasmus

students. By these means critical mass can be achieved for students
of urban history while simultaneously maximising expertise and
achieving economies of scale for academic staff.
This panorama for teaching urban history in Europe is not hypothetical

- or a ‘wish list’ that is unattainable. It is achievable through the vigour,
commitment and the personal and intellectual bonds that have underpinned
previous initiatives. Even before the foundation of the European Urban
History Association, when Erasmus, Socrates and European Social Fund
opportunities were exploited to develop projects and teaching exchanges,
such initiatives proved fertile. Hence the T.U. Berlin initiative with New York
to explore metropolitan history, and the Leicester-Dublin-Leiden-Stockholm-
Darmstadt MA teaching programme to study the process of European
urbanisation offer new approaches for teaching urban history based on
maximising the expertise across more than one university. Academic staff at
the Centre for Urban History, Leicester provide annually both a Summer
School and a residential field trip week designed to read the urban landscape
on the ground and not just from documents.3 No doubt the expansion of
the European Union will encourage further partnerships. Other initiatives
such as the Atlas of Historic Towns, and the remarkable volumes on France
and the Iberia published by Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
are publishing initiatives that provide resources for teaching urban history.4
What is conspicuously lacking is a student textbook that provides an accessible
and geographically expansive vista of European urbanisation and captures
the imagination of a new generation of undergraduate students.5
If the teaching of urban history is to advance, then it must build out of

local studies of towns and cities to embrace comparative urban history.
Upon the particular, the general needs to be constructed. Indeed, this is
the only way to make progress, for the purely local study is unlikely to
have meaning beyond the immediate orbit of local people and a deeper
2
ESTER: European Graduate School for Training in Economic and Social Historical Research. The
ESTER-program offers advanced theoretical and methodological training to postgraduates working
on economic and social history. See www.rug.nl/posthumus/eSTERInternationalProgram/
3
www.le.ac.uk/ur/courses/pdf/dl_leaflet.pdf
4
M. Guàrdia, F.-J. Monclus, and J. -L. Oyón, Atlas Histórico de Ciudades Europas (Barcelona 1994); J.-
L. Pinol, ed., Atlas Historique des Villes de France (Paris 1996).
5
P. M. Hohenberg and L. H. Lees The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1994 (Cambridge MA, 1995) approaches
general issues of European urbanisation but displays signs of age since its initial publication in the mid-
1980s. J-L Pinol, dir, L’histoire de l’Europe urbaine (Paris 2003) provides a more recent general survey,
though its impact has unfortunately been limited by the extent of its distribution by the publisher.
4
understanding of the fundamental processes that have shaped town and

city development will stall. This is not to say that there is a single unifying
theory of urban development, but that in teaching students about the
resources, markets, privileges and jurisdictions, power and authority,
symbol and representation, mobility and migration, inclusiveness
concerning gender, race and systems of belief, public policy, and relations
between public spheres and private ones, urban principles and
relationships, networks, styles of living and household structures are
explored in ways that subsequently inform comparisons between towns
and cities throughout Europe from classical times to the modern day.
Issues that do not arise from the essays, not unreasonably since authors
were not asked to address the topics, include (i) the role of the national
associations of urban history, where these exist, and (ii) the role of the
European Urban History Association. Taking the EUHA first, at present it
functions as the organisational committee for a bi-annual conference at
which between 250 and 425 delegates have attended each meeting since
the inaugural conference in Amsterdam in 1992, and the eighth in
Stockholm in 2006. Sponsorship involves the organiser of these
conferences with onerous responsibilities, and beneficiaries include all
delegates, and especially graduate students who can obtain bursaries to
offset costs. Occasionally, as with this publication, the EUHA has assumed
other responsibilities but whether it should undertake wider
responsibilities is a major issue and raises questions about the
autonomous role of national organisations which in a sense are the
grassroots of the European wide interest in urban history. Should
representatives of national associations get together to forge better links
and shape collaborative projects in the light of European Union 6th and
7th Framework financing possibilities? Can individuals mount cross-
boundary projects to raise major funding to advance comparative analyses
of urban history themes?
These and related issues cannot be resolved here, but require action
and negotiation if they are to be advanced. However, the optimism of
the essays presented in this book might be blunted if there was no greater
vision of international and inter-disciplinary collaboration. The excitement
of the subject, as the authors in this volume convey, is in the intellectual
demands that urban history makes in understanding the processes that
have shaped our towns and cities in the past, and which remain topical,
if in different forms.
5
Urban history goes far beyond the history of specific places and town
histories. It addresses, in an urban setting, the fundamental historical
relationships and behavioural patterns in past times. Teaching urban
history, therefore, is of interest not just to teachers and students, but to
the general public in advancing greater understanding of who and where
they are, and why the towns and cities in which they mostly live are they
way they are. How much shallower would our lives be without this
understanding of historical urban processes?
Towns and cities are living organisms. They evolve. They mutate.
However, it is not sufficient to reflect just on the historical urban past; to
be a responsible and active citizen it is crucial to understand and relate
the past with the present, and indeed with the future. Urban policy after
all is about applying experience, and that experience is derived from
historical analysis. Teaching urban history in Europe is not just about the
past, therefore, but is very much about our urban futures, too.
6
Appendix 1
Survey of the Teaching of Urban History
We are trying to establish the range and nature of urban history

teaching in Europe. It would help us in this process if you could take 10
minutes to reply to the questionnaire and e mail it back to us. The results
will be presented to the Committee and Conference of the European
Urban History Association.
Please give your
Name:
University/College: UNIVERSITY OF
E mail:
Section A Programmes of study on Urban History in your University?

1 Do you have a degree course specifically entitled ‘Urban History’ in
your University/College? Yes/No If No, go to question 5.
2 If yes, please give the name of the course:
3 At what level is taught? 1st degree, or Masters?
4 How many students, on average, over the last 3 years, have taken this
course of study?
Section B Individual Courses or Modules on Urban History in your

University
5 Are there specific courses in your University/College that are principally
concerned with the history and development of towns and cities?
Yes/No If No go to Q10.
Please list the courses/modules:
(For example: Urban Planning since 1850, Crime and Punishment in Early
Modern Towns; Capital Cities and their Hinterlands; the French Urban
System etc)
7
6 How many students, on average, over the last 3 years, have taken a
course of study in urban history?
7 At what level is the course taught? Introductory, intermediate, advanced?
Please specify.
8 Are the courses (a) medieval (b) early modern (c) modern (d)
contemporary (e) all of these. Please specify.
9 Including yourself, how many people are involved in teaching the
‘urban history’ courses identified in Q5?
Section C Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Research

10 Do you have PhD candidates in an area that could be considered ‘urban
history’ ie based on an urban area, or concerned with relations/
comparisons between urban areas? Yes/No
11 Please indicate how many students in the last 3 years have completed
a PhD in an area roughly defined as urban history.
12 Are there funded research projects in your University that involve
post-doctoral researchers? Yes/No
Section D About you

13 Would you be interested in a syllabus exchange, on the model
provided by the Urban History Association of America?
Provide web address here.
14 Are you aware of the conferences held bi-annually by the European
Urban History Association? Yes/No
15 Was this questionnaire obtained:
o from a colleague
o from H-Urban
o from the centre for Urban History, Leicester website
o from another source - please specify
8
16 Does your University/College have a teaching exchange that involves

urban history courses under the Erasmus/Socrates or other
arrangements? Yes/No
Please specify:
17 If your answer was ‘no’ to Q16 would you like to develop such an
exchange involving students studying urban topics? Yes/No
Section E Any other comments?
Declaration:
We will only use this information for the purpose stated. If you do not
want to receive further information from the European Urban History
Association then please indicate this below.
Send back to Richard Rodger rgr@le.ac.uk or Denis Menjot
menjot@univ-lyon2.fr or place in the box provided at the Conference.
9
10
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Richard Rodger
Four separate developments in the last two decades have made a

significant contribution to the teaching of urban history to undergraduates
in Britain. Three of these had much to do with the efforts of urban
historians and the fourth was a structural, or more accurately
infrastructural, initiative within the British university system. This
structural factor was the heavy investment in computing for all
undergraduates, as UK universities sought to respond to significant
limitations on public expenditure by switching from a labour intensive
form of instruction to a more capital intensive one. Faced with the double
impact of Conservative Party cuts to the public sector in the 1980s, and
the Labour Party’s determination after 1997 to increase participation in
university education to 50 per cent of all school leavers, the nature of
teaching changed beyond all recognition. This was certainly the case for
those who were appointed to university lectureships in the 1960s and
1970s.1 Furthermore, though university funding was determined by an
assessment of research quality – the Research Assessment Exercise or
‘RAE’ – for all universities the teaching element remained the
overwhelming determinant of a university’s revenues and so a competitive
situation resulted in which individual universities competed to recruit
students in order to shore up their balance sheet.2 Faced with rapidly
1
In 2005 the level of university participation has already reach 44 per cent of 18 years olds in England
and 50 per cent in Scotland.
2
At least 80 per cent of a university’s income, and in some cases over 90 per cent, was determined by
the number of students. At any given time up to ten of Britain’s 100 universities could be considered
to be bankrupt.
11
rising numbers of undergraduates, new ways of teaching and, more

practically, mountains of essays to mark, university staff sought alternative
methods to deliver courses and grade their teaching.3 Concurrently,
urban history lost ground as traditional areas of recruitment in social
and economic history, human geography, and social sciences came under
recruitment pressure, with students opting for subjects such as business
studies, management, computer and information sciences which were
seen as offering better employment prospects.
The nature of student demand, in terms of numbers and subject

matter, and the ageing staff profile in the British university system, did
not favour the teaching of urban history in the quarter century from
1980, and especially since the 1990s. Furthermore, the admission of a
number of ‘New Universities’ to the Higher Education sector in 1992 -
formerly polytechnics with traditionally stronger vocational and applied
subject strengths – meant that library resources in the humanities and
social sciences were often limited, and certainly stretched as they also
sought to respond to the financial imperative to expand student
recruitment. It is against this background, therefore, that the teaching of
urban history in the United Kingdom needs to be considered.
Important initiatives in teaching urban history thus focused on making

materials available on a more expansive basis. Amongst the first was the
decision by Peter Clark and David Reeder from the Centre for Urban
History at the University of Leicester to encourage a publisher, Longmans,
to produce a series of ‘Readers in Urban History.’4 These paperbacks
(see Figure 2.1) typically with twelve essays in each, were intended as
general texts containing seminal articles previously published by noted
urban historians, and aimed to provide an introduction to the historical
study of towns and cities for a student readership that was unlikely
previously to have encountered such a thematic approach. Competitively
priced, and judged by royalties and usage in the public library system of
the UK, there is reason to believe that at least some of the volumes
achieved this objective.5
3
The number of students per university teacher increased by 19 per cent between 1995-96 and 2002-
03 alone. For further data see http://www.hesa.ac.uk/holisdocs/home.htm; overall student numbers
increased by 24 per cent or almost a quarter in eight years.
4
R. Holt and G. Rosser, eds., The Medieval Town: 1200-1540; J. Barry ed., The Tudor and Stuart Towns
1530-1688; P. Borsay, ed., The Eighteenth Century Town 1688- 1820 (all published by Longmans,
London 1990); and R. J. Morris and R. Rodger, eds., The Victorian City 1820-1914 (1993).
5
The Public Lending Rights system distributes payments on the basis of sampled usage of volumes by
members of the general public and of photocopies made in the universities.
12
United Kingdom
Figure 2.1
Student Texts: Readers in Urban History
The Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) was

another development, based on much the same principles of extending
access to urban historical materials and resources, and consistent with
the need to utilise new electronic technologies to deliver productivity
gains in the classroom. This initiative applied across the university sector
(see Figure 2.2). In History, as in Geography, Archaeology, Biology, Music,
Languages, Statistics and Mathematics, specialists combined to provide
‘core’ materials that formed the basis of a tutorial or self-teach module
13
long since familiar to students of the Open University. The difference

was that instead of a band of OU students who set their videos to record
TV programmes transmitted at the dead of night and then watched or
listened to them later, the TLTP, funded by a consortium of universities,
provided tutorials that were mounted on the servers of each university
and accessed locally by students. Now very familiar to all with access to
web browsers, the concept was similar, yet quite advanced at the time.
Live linked resources, pictures, charts, texts, and illustrations allowed
students to deviate from the main tutorial text, which provided a spine
for the module. As recently as the mid-1990s these were still quite
advanced modes of delivery for teaching, and urban historians were very
much to the fore in this initiative with two important contributions on
eighteenth century towns and nineteenth century cities.6 Shoemaker
and Hitchcock described their approach. They were aiming to provide
materials on the social and economic history of early modern and modern
Britain and Europe for undergraduate history and related courses in years
1 and 2, though these courses were also suitable for specialist classes in
year 3 of a BA degree. The eighteenth century town tutorial was also
linked to a suite of similar tutorials on ‘The Industrial Revolution and
Post-Industrialisation.’7 They further explained:
The subject of this tutorial is the importance of towns in eighteenth-

century English society, particularly in relation to the early stages
of industrialisation and the changing forms of social organisation
and social relations. The tutorial will include data on six sample
towns. The tutorial covers many topics of general interest, including
crime, poverty and gender. Units within this tutorial are:
1. The population history of English towns

2. Economy
3. Social structure and social relations.
6
TLTP, Urbanisation in the Nineteenth Century (R. J. Morris, R. Rodger, J. Jenkinson and H. Meller);
TLTP, Economic Growth and Social Change in the Eighteenth-Century English Town (R. Shoemaker,
T. Hitchcock).
7
In addition to the two TLTP tutorials on eighteenth and nineteenth century urbanisation, the
prominence of urban and social history can be seen from the fact that about two-thirds of the other
titles developed by the Learning Technology initiative were in closely related fields. These included:
(i) Mass Politics and the Revolutions of 1848 (ii) Enfranchising Women: The Politics of Women’s
Suffrage in Europe 1789-1945 (iii) British Industry (iv) The Social Aspects of Industrialisation (v) The
Protestant Reformation: Religious Change and the People of the Sixteenth Century (vi) Major Themes
in Women’s History: from the Enlightenment to the 2nd World War.
14
United Kingdom
Figure 2.2
On Line and On Screen: TLTP Teaching Materials
for the 18th Century Town
Shoemaker and Hitchcock captured the philosophy of the approach

by stating that ‘the tutorials were be used as self-study materials by
students in various ways.’ The uses of the materials were:
• as a teaching resource to replace or supplement lectures and

tutorials
• as preparation for essays and projects
• as a resource collection to explore as part of a special subject

course
It was expected that each unit would take 1-2 hours to read through
with ‘detailed exploration of each unit’ requiring ‘up to 10 hours’ of study.
15
In many respects the TLTP initiative in urban history was not itself a
great success. Slow to get underway, and overtaken by the pace of
technology changes and software developments, the project showed what
was possible and its real success was in stimulating the development of
similar projects. Thus, for example, the Bristol Historical Database project
developed by Peter Wardley, successfully exploited the TLTP model but
with more sophisticated handling because of its web-based design, though
still dependent on CDs for delivery. 8 The port, social structure,
demography, poverty, political movements and a range of other topics were
covered, and in parallel there was a considerable volume of data and
contemporary accounts. It was ‘user-friendly’ compared to the TLTP and
offered a smoother learning experience for the student. The disadvantage,
as with other initiatives of this kind, was that universities and academics
encountered difficulties in distributing their ‘products’ and thus
administrative hurdles torpedoed this initiative in terms of wider access.
Of course, many other historical databases have been developed. The

Westminster Historical Database is an important collection of data
concerning eighteenth century political behaviour. Crucially the authors
have delivered not only the poll books, the study of which are the
cornerstone for understanding the role of the electorate and those who
voted in this period, but also the relevant rate books. This means that it
is possible to delve a little deeper into the lives of the Westminster voters,
to try to assess their socio-economic status. In turn this allows the
researcher to investigate the long-held assumptions about deference and
independence in this period. But this is a book delivered electronically;
it is not in itself a structured teaching resource for urban history.9 In a
similar vein, the Gloucester Port Books, 1575-1765 have been made
available on a CD after coping for twenty years with changing technologies,
and though ‘this major historical database at last sees the light of day in
a form that is accessible to scholars and students alike’, it is not itself a
structured learning resource through which to teach urban history.10
These resources are important for teaching urban history. They and
other national datasets for Ireland and the United Kingdom are crucial in
allowing students to shape their own projects, discover new approaches,
and develop comparative work based on the cumulative electronic
8
See http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/Regionhistory/bhdp.htm
9
C. Harvey, E. Green and P. Corfield, Westminster Historical Database (Bristol Academic Press, 1998,
and CD). For a review see http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/CTICH/Publications/craf19_6.htm
10
See http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/CTICH/Publications/craf19_5.htm for a review of this project.
16
United Kingdom
resources increasingly available from research materials deposited with

accredited organisations.11 However, they and other databases like them
do not provide a structured student learning environment and for this
reason are noted, but not explored further here.
For different reasons, the Conservative and Labour administrations put

pressure on the university system in Britain after 1980. Major infrastructural
investment took place in terms of computing facilities within the universities
without corresponding improvements in teaching or library resources.
Alongside this structural change, it was noted earlier, urban historians made
three contributions to the improvement of teaching in their subject. Firstly,
by developing new methods of delivery such as Course Readers and,
secondly, by increasing the use of digital resources. These two approaches
were complemented by a third, the impressive three volume, 3000 pages,
ten kilograms Cambridge Urban History of Britain, published in 2000
and the intellectual product of 90 urban historians’ research.12 Reviews of
these volumes generally agree on the importance of this venture for both
research and teaching in urban history.13 In many respects the volumes
represented a stock-taking, a review of progress since an earlier summary
by H.J. Dyos in 1966, and another in a memorial volume published in
1983 following his death.14 Indispensable for research purposes, a number
of the chapters in these volumes have already become important syntheses
11
For datasets and similar internet resources see, amongst others, the Arts and Humanities Historical
Database Online at http://hds.essex.ac.uk/gbh.asp; the Database of Irish Historical Statistics http://
www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/iredb/dbhme.htm and http://ahds.ac.uk/history/collections/census-statistics.htm;
the Great Britain Historical GIS project http://www.port.ac.uk/research/gbhgis/ See also the UK Data
Archive www.data-archive.ac.uk and Edina http://edina.ac.uk/ for important deposits of data sets and
maps. Another important resource in the Digital Directories project at the University of Leicester. See
http://www.historicaldirectories.org/
12
D. M. Palliser, ed., The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. I, 600-1540; P. A. Clark, ed., The
Cambridge Urban History of Britain vol. II, 1540-1840; M. J. Daunton, ed., The Cambridge Urban
History of Britain, vol. III, 1840-1950 (all published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000).
Each volume contains an excellent bibliography. In addition, P. A. Clark provides a historiographical
essay (vol. II, 16-22).
13
See the extended reviews essays by C. Phythian-Adams, ‘“Small scale Toy Towns and Trumptons”?
Urbanizations in Britain and the new Cambridge Urban History’; and H. Meller, ‘From Dyos to Daunton:
the Cambridge Urban History Vol. III’, both in Urban History, 28, 2001, 256-68 and 269-77. Shorter
book reviews have also appeared including: P.L. Garside, London Journal 26 (2) 2001; H. Eiden,
London Journal, 26 (2), 2001; P. Coss, Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature, 86, 2001; A. Thorpe,
History, 87: 288, 2002; N. Hayes, Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (4) 2002; B. Ayers, Society for
Landscape Studies, 23, 2001, K. Lilley, Society for Landscape Studies, 23, 2001; B. Harvey, Kantian
Review, 5, 2001; W. J. Sheils, Journal Ecclesiastical History, 53 (2) 2002, A. Saint, Times Literary
Supplement 5111, Mon 16 Aug 2001; R. Paddison, Urban Studies, 39 (8) 2001; A. Schmidt, Journal of
Social History, 36 (3) 2003.
14
H. J. Dyos, ‘Agenda for urban historians’, in H. J. Dyos, ed., The Study of Urban History (London
1968); D. Fraser and A. Sutcliffe, eds., The Pursuit of Urban History (London 1983), xi-xxx.
17
for students’ work on such diverse topics as urban governance, poverty,

power and authority, population, estrangement and belonging,
representations of the city and industry and the city, whilst the regional
studies and more prosaic surveys of small towns, market towns and ports
have also proved a useful resource.15
Fragmentation and Innovation in the Urban History Curriculum

In the 1970s, when the Urban History conference was still unified with
modern and pre-modern elements represented, attendance at these
professional meetings numbered 133 in Leicester in 1972 and 80 in Liverpool
in 1980.16 Yet, as Figure 2.3 shows, the earlier clusters of teaching staff in
British universities, judged at least by those attending conferences, had
begun to break down. Whereas in 1972, more than two in every five attending
were from ten institutions, by 1980 this was nearer one in three.17 Aggregate
attendance was in decline – a fall of 40 per cent between 1972 and 1980
was matched by another of 40 per cent by 1986, though by then a vigorous
Pre-Modern Towns Meeting was becoming established with a tighter
intellectual focus. It is also worth noting that social history as an area of
study was very slow to develop in Britain and that only in 1976 was the first
issue of the journal, Social History, published. Thus for at least a decade
from the first meeting of the Urban History Group conference in 1968 until
about 1980 it also functioned as an umbrella organisation for social
historians. So the decline in numbers attending urban history conferences
was accelerated by the emergence of social history as a distinct discipline.
Two trends were clear for the teaching of urban history. One was
methodological: social scientists dominated the modern period and
historians colonised the pre-modern era. The second was organisation:
clusters of urban historians were weakening from c.1980 in the sense
that attenders at conferences were less likely to be accompanied by
colleagues from their own institutions. Related to this was the increasing
presence of lecturers from what since 1992 have been known as the
15
An unfortunate omission is Ireland and Irish towns on which there is an increasing amount of published
work with material on Dublin particularly important for an understanding of British urban history.
16
Later a schism took place when the Pre-Modern Towns meeting developed a separate one day annual
meeting in London. The Urban History Group continued to meet at an annual residential two day
meeting in different places around Britain and has continued a loose relationship with social and
economic historians.
17
Those attending from the host institution have been omitted since this tends to inflate the number
for that university.
18
United Kingdom
‘New Universities.’ This was the result of a difficult job market for many
very bright young scholars in urban history, as in other disciplines, who
were trying to break into university teaching when the system was under
considerable financial pressure in the 1980s and 1990s. These former
polytechnics, re-designated as New Universities, lacked the traditional
research culture of the longer established institutions. As a result they
increasingly adopted an interdisciplinary approach to teaching designed
to optimise the benefits from their existing staffing levels. As part of this
interdisciplinary strategy, cultural studies and combined humanities
offered a productive route to both teaching and research revenues,
exploiting areas of student demand that established universities were
slow to identify. Taken together, these trends in national educational policy
and local responses to them produced some of the fragmentation in
urban history, while simultaneously generating new agendas for both
teaching and research in the subject.
Figure 2.3
Numbers Attending Urban History Group Conferences 1972 and 1980
(by institution)
Source: Centre for Urban History files, Delegate Lists 1972, 1980.
19
Another consequence of these methodological and organisational changes

was a proliferation of undergraduate courses with an urban dimension
throughout the British university system. Though there were never
undergraduate degrees in urban history, the clustering of staff with related
urban interests meant there was often a thread of urban history teaching in
several universities at any one time. Indeed, the clusters of attendees at
Urban History Group conferences identified those institutions where urban
history teaching was strongest. In the 1970s these included Birmingham,
Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Hull, Kent, Leicester, Liverpool, London,
Oxford, Sheffield, and Strathclyde. By the 1980s, Birmingham, Bristol, Kent,
and Oxford had a reduced presence, with Belfast, Essex, Lancaster and
Glasgow more notable for their offerings of undergraduate courses with an
urban history element. Since the mid-1990s, representatives from Leeds
Metropolitan, Sheffield Hallam, Wolverhampton, Bath, and Manchester
Metropolitan, to name a few, have confirmed the spread of urban history
teaching into the new university sector. However, even though numbers
attending Urban History Group conferences since the mid-1990s have
exceeded those of the mid-1980s, over 40 per cent of those registered in
2004 and 2005 were the sole representative of their university, compared to
19 per cent in 1972, 28 per cent in 1980, and 23 per cent in 1986, confirming
just how thinly spread urban history teaching now is across the British
university system. The contribution, at a national level, of electronic teaching
resources and textbooks with core readings thus now seems to have been
timely and well-judged. It also demonstrates an acute interpretation of the
circumstances and a responsive approach from a number of individuals active
in the field of British urban history, widely defined. The foundation of the
Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester in 1985 was certainly
a catalyst in this process and gave the study of urban history an organisational
focus needed to develop and execute initiatives in consultation with members
of the Pre-Modern Towns and Urban History Groups.
A census of courses, conducted in 1990-91 confirmed that the nature

of urban history teaching can only be described as diverse.18 Though
now somewhat out of date, the census provides a snapshot view of the
teaching of urban history in Britain prior to the expansion of the university
sector in 1992, and in many cases variants of the courses taught remain
in the syllabuses for undergraduate degrees. Broadly, the teaching of
urban history can be summarised in 5 categories:
18
B. Haynes and P. Clark, eds., Register of European Urban History Teaching, Research and Publications
(Leicester, Centre for Urban History, Special Publications, 1991), 65-102.
20
United Kingdom
(i) survey courses, reviewing the nature of the urbanisation process

and covering at least a century. These may be ancient, medieval,
early modern, or modern in periodisation, or sometimes straddle
two or more periods.
(ii) courses principally concerned with spatial relations
(iii) local history perspectives with more generalised implications for
the urban system as a whole
(iv) thematic urban history
(v) comparative and international studies of urban history
The nature of urbanisation remains one of the most popular types of

urban history course taught in British universities. At Bangor (The English
Town 1500-1700), Birmingham (Towns and Artisans 1750-1850), Bristol
(British Industrialisation and Urbanisation), Cheltenham (British Urban
History 1800-1914), Leicester (Towns in Early Modern England) and
Salford (British Urban History) this type of sweeping survey of the
character of urban change provides an overview for students, introducing
them to the principal themes and concepts. No historical sweep appears
too daunting at Edinburgh (World Urbanisation 9000 BC to 1990 AD) or
South Bank University where another long time span has been used to
teach urban history in a course entitled ‘Roman, Saxon, Norman and
Medieval Towns 43-1600.’ More general survey courses were also a
common method of teaching urban history, as with ‘English Urban History
1500-1800’ (Nottingham). ‘English Society in the 17th Century’ (Oxford)
and ‘Economic Features of Towns 1450-1750’ (Oxford) both represented
different means to achieve such an overview, as did ‘The Growth of English
Towns 1660-1840’ (Reading), ‘The Pre-Industrial Town’ (Roehampton)
and ‘Towns in the English Economy and Society 1485-1750’ (St Andrews).
The use of a broad sweep has often been allied to a temporal focus,
with teaching restricted to a specific period. Thus medieval urban history
was powerfully represented at Birmingham for many years with an influential
triumvirate of historians complemented by geographers, and at Cambridge,
where courses on ‘The Late Medieval Town in England’ and ‘English Urban
Society 1100-1550’ were amongst those offered. Edinburgh, too, offered
ancient and medieval urban history (English Provincial Town Life 110-c.1600;
and also, Medieval British Towns). The late medieval town was the focus of
courses at Hull and York under the title ‘Cities in Crisis 1400-1600: Large
English Towns’, and at London and Manchester on the same period. Teaching
of urban history at Newcastle included a course entitled ‘Feudal Societies’,
focusing on the origins and functions of feudal towns.
21
Another chronological survey that has proved popular in the teaching

of urban history has been the Victorian period. Indeed, in several cases,
following the title used by Asa Briggs, lecturers have simply used ‘Victorian
Cities’ to describe their course (Durham, East Anglia, Leicester, Lancaster
and Manchester). More broadly, the inter-relation between industrialisation
and urbanisation has been the principal focus of teaching at Lampeter and
Lancaster, and in many other universities. ‘Georgian Towns’ (Nottingham)
and ‘English Elizabethan and Tudor provincial towns’ (Manchester) have
provided different chronological foci for teaching urban history but many
of the concerns remain the same – power, authority, regulation, control,
popular culture, environment and planning.
A second category of urban history courses, often taught by non-

historians, has a powerful spatial element as its principal concern.
Historical geographers have been particularly influential in this arena,
concentrating as they have on the spatial aspects of urban development,
as at Aberystwyth where courses covering landowners and the built form
and world urban systems were available to undergraduates. Urban
morphology also figured at Aberystwyth, as it did in the heartland of that
specialism, Birmingham. Urban historical geography was a long standing
tradition at Liverpool, until the Department was denuded of its staff in
successive purges associated with the financial exigencies previously
explored. Planners, architects, art historians, archaeologists, landscape
and environmental historians all staked a claim in teaching their subject
by reference to historical developments in towns and cities. Their
numerous courses are not identified here, but it is worth noting the
interdependence of urban history and the history of urban planning,
which has figured prominently in the teaching curriculum at Birmingham,
De Montfort, and University of West of England (UWE). At East Anglia
(UEA), ‘The History of Air Pollution’ has long been available to
undergraduates, and at Leicester several courses are taught on the history
of urban planning.
Thirdly, many courses, understandably, focused on individual places

– not as local historical studies but in a broader, more visionary tradition
of understanding urban processes through case studies. This was the
case with courses on ‘Chester and York 1450-1550’ and ‘London 1540-
1666’, both at Liverpool, and on ‘London 1400-1600’ at Birkbeck. These
should be distinguished from the multitude of local history courses
concerned only with the development of a particular place and not with
22
United Kingdom
the process or wider characteristics of urbanism. English local history at

Leicester and a similar interest at Sheffield have been strongly associated
with this more ambitious remit. Courses on the history of London have
proved attractive to students at a number of institutions. Relations
between the capital and provincial cities, and between the capital and its
hinterland were offered at Exeter (London and the Provinces 1550-1780),
and at Liverpool relations between the capital and provinces are also
addressed in a course entitled ‘Urban Growth and Government 1540-
1666’. Another variant was ‘Town and Country’ offered at Keele, whilst
local history, demography and urban history were combined in source
based courses occasionally, such as at Hertfordshire.
Often local histories were part of urban typologies – families of towns

– considered collectively, or comparatively. Examples of these urban
typologies include the focus on seaside towns evident at both Brighton
(Seaside Resorts in South East England) and at Lancaster, where urban
settlements in the north west were also considered as part of a regional
system, an approach adopted in Leicester and Sheffield too. Other courses
were essentially local history studies – such as ones on the Black Country
and Stourbridge offered at Birmingham through its continuing education
programmes, and on politics and urban life in Staffordshire at Keele, or
on medieval Worcester at Worcester College.
Thematic studies formed a fourth variation. Urban history was taught

through courses on housing history (UWE), housing and poverty
(Huddersfield) and ‘Urban Management since 1900’ (Salford). The course
‘Outcast London’ (University College London) focused on class relations
underpinned by poverty and housing reform, with a strong geographical
perspective, whilst a survey of housing, landownership and town planning
1780-1939 (Roehampton) also delivered teaching through a thematic survey.
Perspectives on urban history were offered through courses concerned with
urban education (Liverpool, London, and Leicester), London’s electoral
politics in the late eighteenth century (Royal Holloway, London), and music
and print culture (Royal Holloway, London). Through such courses students
obtained a better understanding of the political culture and manners of
urban Britain. Much the same intent informed ‘Patricians and Plebs: Polite
Society in the 18th Century’ (Leicester) and ‘English Urban Culture 1690-
1780’ (Lampeter); both designed to provide a means of understanding urban
society in the capital and provincial towns of Britain. ‘The Changing Roles
of Women in Urban Society’ (Nottingham) was another urban history course
23
taught on a thematic basis, and there have been an increasing number of

courses based on the history of medicine used to explore aspects of British
urban history, as at Sheffield, Glasgow, and London.
Perhaps of all thematically driven teaching in urban history, courses on

class and urban social structure were amongst the most popular for some
time. Such offerings were available at Edinburgh (Making of the British
Middle Class), Exeter (British Urban Society since 1800), Lancaster (Urban
Society and Politics’; ‘Urban Popular Culture’ and ‘Insurgency in Early
Modern Europe) and Salford (Urbanisation and Social Problems). At Royal
Holloway, London ‘Urban Society 1400-1600’ dealt with poverty,
government, leisure, housing and related subjects associated with social
structure. Class relations saturated ‘Capital and Class in England 1830-
1914’ (Manchester) and ‘Urban Change in 19th and 20th Century Britain:
Housing Forms, Social Class and Power Relationships’ (Northumbria). In
no small measure teaching urban history through class relations was part
of a politically charged environment within British universities as social
sciences expanded rapidly in the 1960s, though as a different political
culture emerged in the 1980s class receded as an organisational element
in many urban history courses. Nonetheless, power and the manipulation
of urban power continued to form an important component in many
syllabuses. This was evident in courses on local and central government
relations taught at Keele, Manchester and Salford, and on ‘States and Society
1215-1500’ (Swansea) where the emphasis was on the relationships
between politics and power, cities, citizens and the state.
Finally, in this rough categorisation, teaching urban history using

comparative and international perspectives has proved a productive
means of understanding the processes of urban change in all its economic,
social, cultural, and political complexities. There were courses on
European urbanisation at Durham (Italian Towns and Trade 1260-1453),
Cambridge (Culture and Society in Italy 1280-1348: Urban Politics, Civic
Culture), Lancaster (Early Modern European Popular Culture), Leicester
(Urbanisation in Western Europe 1500-1800) and London (Urban
Historical Geography of France to 1920). At Manchester (19th and 20th
Century European Urbanisation), Swansea (Venice and its Empire 1204-
1571), Northumbria (Towns in Early Modern Europe), Nottingham (The
Archaeology of Medieval Europe 1000-1500), and Reading (Urban
Development in 12 th Century Northern Europe) comparative and
international perspectives dominated the syllabus in demanding courses
spanning different centuries and different cultures.
24
United Kingdom
Moving further afield, to North America, comparative developments

in the Arts and Crafts Movement formed the basis of teaching intended
to explore the culture, design and the fabric of British and American
cities (Sheffield), and a comparative and thematic approach was adopted
to study British and American urbanisation (Essex). At Glasgow, teaching
urban history embraced this international dimension (Second Cities:
Glasgow and Philadelphia 1780-1914), as it did at Keele (‘Cultural
Geography of Urban America 1860-1920), where teaching the urban
history of the modern period was delivered through another America
urban history course, ‘Post Industrial City: Urban Change in the USA
1945-90.’ Indeed, urbanisation was a strong element of the American
Studies programme at Keele and at Nottingham, where ‘Ghettoes and
urban protest in the USA’ and courses on consumer culture were taught.
In recent years, teaching of urban history has turned to many

innovative approaches. From an earlier emphasis on the physical, social
and administrative character of towns and cities, teaching has come to
reflect developments in cultural theory and post-modernism with a more
reflexive element that maps on to governance, civil society,
representations, mentalités, deviance, and perceptions to provide a more
nuanced account of urban life. Thus while the teaching of urban history
still parades conventional course titles in degree prospectuses, such as
‘European Towns in Early Modern Times’ (Warwick), ‘European Cities’
(Leeds Metropolitan), ‘Urbanisation: the Study of Urban Societies’
(Warwick), and ‘Medieval British Landed Estates, Towns and Trade’
(Edinburgh), increasingly titles such as ‘The Smugglers’ City’ (Bristol),
‘Towns and Townscapes: Dundee, Glasgow and Europe, 1700-1900’
(Dundee), and ‘Patricians and Plebs’ (Leicester) convey something of
the new flavour of urban history that is emerging in British classrooms.
Structured Teaching
Almost all of the courses identified above were the brain-children of
individual scholars, mostly given a free hand to develop their own areas
of teaching interest. Given the rigidities of the British university system,
and especially of the 3-year English BA degree structure, the scope for a
student to do more than take a single course in urban history was limited.
Accordingly, the teaching of urban history remained only one strand
amongst many in the undergraduate history curriculum.
25
All that changed where a Master’s course was developed. Only at Leicester
has a graduate teaching programme in urban history existed, though
developments at King’s College, London and the Institute of Historical
Research offer some similarities in newly developed MA degrees.19 The MA
programme taught by staff at the Centre for Urban History has two variants,
an MA in Urban History and MA in European Urbanisation, and has always
been accredited by the national research council for the social sciences, the
Economic and Social Research Council. This accreditation means that an
independent panel has approved the course structures and contents on a
regular basis –approximately every four years. Together with this imprimatur
of quality control comes ESRC funding for graduate students which covers
both fees and living expenses, and enables them to study for an MA degree
followed by a PhD. It would be inappropriate to claim that the Leicester
course structure was ideal, but it does offer some guidance as to what
elements are considered essential by an external organisation as the basis
of graduate training in urban history.20 The elements include:
(i) Historiography: a survey of European historiography from

medieval to modern, based on a thematic approach
(ii) Social Science Training courses: Research Methods, Bibliographical
Training, Ethical and International Property Rights Issues,
Elementary Statistics and Presentational Skills
(iii) Economics for Historians
(iv) Social Theory
(v) Surviving Archives: Sources and Methods for Historians
(vi) 2 options chosen from the following list
• Medieval Towns
• The Topography of English Towns 1500-1800
• Victorian Cities
• Colonial Cities 1850-1950
• History of Urban Planning in Europe
(vii) Dissertation (20,000 words)
This structure has three basic elements - research training skills, historical
studies on a comparative or thematic basis, and a dissertation based on
original research in archives – each weighted at a third of the overall marks.
19
There were also Graduate programmes in MA London History (Birkbeck), MA Cities, Culture and
Social Change (King’s College, London) and, recently announced though as yet no students have
been admitted, MA Metropolitan and Regional History at the Institute of Historical Research London.
20
For a full description of the individual elements see http://www.le.ac.uk/urbanhist/
26
United Kingdom
The objective is to develop a flexible, thoroughly trained researcher, who

may in due course proceed to a PhD thesis and become an academic scholar
in a university, but who, if not, is very capable of undertaking research in
government, public institutions, or the private sector.
This pattern of teaching for the MA in Urban History has also been also
adapted for the purposes of the MA in European Urbanisation and forms
part of a network of universities that with Leicester includes Leiden, Dublin,
Berlin, Stockholm and Darmstadt. Thus a student registered in Leicester
spends semester 1 completing elements (i) to (iii), then spends the second
semester at one of the partner institutions where s/he takes two courses in
place of (vi) above, before completing (v) and (vii) on his or her return to
Leicester. Similar to this ‘exporting’ arrangement, Leicester ‘imports’ students
from the partner institutions, offering them two courses from the options
available under (vi). Thus there is an opportunity to experience a semester
abroad and to absorb the benefits of a different culture and educational
system. Generally there have been 6-8 students taking the MA programmes
at Leicester each year, and this provides opportunities for small group
teaching and supervision by academic staff, often on a one-to-one basis.
In some respects, the MA in ‘Cities, Culture and Social Change’ (King’s

College, London) has similarities with the Leicester format.21 Research
training is complemented by subject based teaching in geography,
culminating in a dissertation. The subject based choices are wide because
the this Master’s programme is one of ten courses offered in Geography
at King’s. Elsewhere in British universities, the range and depth of teaching
in urban history is more limited because the MA programme of teaching
is not in urban history but, for example in Social and Cultural Studies
(Leeds Metropolitan) 22 , Urban Design (Manchester Metropolitan)23 ,
Victorian Media and Culture (Royal Holloway, London)24 , Victorian
Studies (Manchester) 25 , or in environmental subjects with an urban
element, such as the M Res (Master of Research) in Environmental History
(Stirling)26 or in Metropolitan and Regional History (London).27
21
For a full description of the individual elements see http://www.kcl.ac.uk/geography
22
See http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cs
23
See http://www.mmu.ac.uk/courses/course_detail.php?courses_id=1655
24
See http://www.history.ac.uk/
25
See http://www.manchester.ac.uk
26
See http://www.sbes.stir.ac.uk/mres
27
For the MA in Metropolitan and Regional History see http://www.history.ac.uk/degrees/metma/
facilities.html
27
The Prospects for Teaching Urban History in Britain

As a subject of study urban history remains a minority topic in British
universities. In some senses this continues a long-established practice of
inter-disciplinarity that certainly dates to the origins of urban history in
the 1960s. Of course, much depends on the definition of urban history
and this may not elicit universal agreement. As a working definition little
has emerged in the last forty years that has improved on that offered by
H.J. Dyos in 1974:
‘..the authentic measure of urban history is the degree to which it is
concerned directly and generically with cities themselves and not with the
historical events and tendencies that have been purely incidental to them
… it is the study of the characteristically symbiotic relationships of (cities’)
different characteristics ... that distinguishes urban historians from those
who may be said merely to be passing through their territory.’28 (pp5-6)
If this is what urban historians did, Dyos also clarified what they did
not do! Urban history, he explained,
‘differs from local history to the extent that it is concerned with a more
pervasive historical process, and from municipal history in being concerned
with vastly more than certain types of local government; it differs from
social history in its quite specific commitment to explaining the
development of both the urban milieu and its uses, and from sociology in
its dominant concern with explaining the urban past; it differs, too, from
its first cousins in this country, economic history and geography. In being
more interested than they can afford to be … in the humanistic and
functional elements composing the urban scene; and it differs incidentally
from a variety of other historical specialisms, such as agricultural, industrial
business, transport, military or town-planning history in not being
concerned with specific forms of activity.’29
Thus fragmentation in the teaching of urban history should not be a

major concern. It is in the nature of urban history, which gains
immeasurably from the cross-fertilisation of inter-disciplinary studies. New
technologies made considerable differences in previous decades as main
frame computing offered nominal linkage in what were early versions of
databases and which enriched the research into small area analysis based
on census data. Improved availability of new electronic source material
will enrich studies of towns and cities for this is the context for much of
that data. Audio and video interviewing present new opportunities, too,
28
H.J. Dyos, ‘Editorial’, Urban History Yearbook, 1974, (Leicester 1974), 5-6.
29
Dyos, ‘Editorial’, 6.
28
United Kingdom
and these also should be built into teaching materials, along with shared
datasets. Since 2000, graduate students registered for Urban History
Group conferences have represented no less than 20 per cent, and
sometimes nearer 30 per cent of the delegates. As long as these meetings
and the nature of our teaching of urban history are stimulating, the study
of urban history will continue to reinvent itself.
29
30
Netherlands
Netherlands
Pim Kooi
Groningen University
Urban history in an urbanized country

Most urban historians agree that urban history was invented in the 1960s.
In fact, the publication of The Study of Urban History in 1968 is often seen
as marking the beginning of the discipline.1 In this book, Jim Dyos and
some of his colleagues tried to define urban history as a distinct discipline,
totally different from local history, in which the urban variable, whatever
that might be, played a distinctive role. In the United States at about the
same time urban history was also emerging as a new discipline through the
efforts of A.B. Callow (1969) and A.M. Wakstein (1971), for example, who
collected a range of articles that set the scene.2
In the Netherlands, this plea for urban history was taken up immediately
by scholars like Herman Diederiks and Jan de Jonge. They founded the Dutch
Association for Urban History and, together with some colleagues, started to
teach urban history: Diederiks focusing on his university city of Leiden, and
De Jonge, of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, on Delft. In the Netherlands,
however, a major problem quickly manifested itself. The Low Countries were
one of the areas where urbanization occurred very early and on a large scale.
Therefore the greater part of the history of the Netherlands had already been
written from an urban perspective. Since there was little point in re-baptizing
this vast historiography as urban history, some filter had to be built in.
1
H.J. Dyos, The Study of Urban History ( London 1968).
2
A.B. Callow, ed., American Urban History (London 1968); A.M. Wakstein, ed., The Urbanization of
America: an Historical Anthology, ( Boston 1970).
31
Initially this filter was derived from geography, especially by scholars

who operated on the interface between history and geography, like Eric
Lampard. The urban variable was defined in spatial terms – only those
studies of urban phenomena which were related to specific spatial
developments were defined as urban histories. In other words, the urban
space had to play an active role in the analysis.3 As a result, in the
Netherlands most of the achievements of the New Urban History, a term
coined by Stephen Thernstrom and others, were excluded from the forum
of urban history because this was seen as a kind of social history in which
the city, i.e. the urban space, only played the role of décor.4 From the
start Dutch urban history had a strong geographical emphasis, and was
primarily place situated in the field of economic and social history.
As will be elaborated below, this quantitative socioeconomic,
geographical approach remained the main trait of urban history in the
Netherlands in its early decades. This was the way urban history was taught,
and many theses also followed this tradition.5 Of course, there were courses
at the universities which dealt with political or cultural developments in
cities, but they were not defined as urban history. In the perception of the
diehard urban historians, these studies represented an outdated
biographical approach. It was only with the linguistic and cultural turn in
history at the end of the 1980s that a discussion arose about the
incorporation of political and cultural developments into urban history.
In the Netherlands this discussion was broached by Harry Jansen from
Radboud University Nijmegen. He suggested a more political and cultural
urban history as a contrast to existing socioeconomic approaches. In his
view most existing studies adopted a semi-open system, in which the
individual city was related to other cities by flows of migration, goods and
information, whilst his alternative conception was of a closed system in
which the individual city was the main subject.6 This juxtaposition made it
very difficult to integrate the two approaches. In closed system urban history,
for instance, the countryside was seen as the opposite of the town: slow
versus fast, traditional versus modern, clean versus dirty and so on. In
semi-open urban history the countryside acted as a complementary system:
a producer of raw materials and an additional labour force.
3
Pim Kooij, ‘Urbanization. What’s is in a name?’, in: H. Schmal , ed., Patterns of European Urbanization
since 1500 (London 1981), 31-61.
4
Stephan Thernstrom and , Richard Sennett, eds., Nineteenth Century Cities. Essays in the New Urban
History, (New Haven 1969).
5
Pim Kooij, ‘The Netherlands’, in Richard Rodger, ed., European Urban History. Prospect and
Retrospect, (Leicester 1993), 127-151.
6
Harry Jansen, The Construction of an Urban Past. Narrative and System in Urban History De constructie
van het stadsverleden, Groningen 1991 (Oxford/New York 2001). The Dutch edition dates from 1991.
32
Netherlands
Fortunately, quite recently urban historians have joined forces to unite

these two approaches. One major reason for this is the large number of
urban histories commissioned by municipal administrations. These urban
histories had to be more or less complete, covering political, cultural
and social, economic and spatial elements. Therefore some kind of
integration was necessary, and miraculously the urban space concept
proved to be a major integrating force, since it could also be translated
into political and cultural terms. In this approach, although space was
again defined as a décor, it was now a stage on which the different social
classes expressed themselves, on which political power was given shape,
for instance in the context of public executions, and where opinion
formers could show unexpected cultural innovation.
Another concept helping to integrate the two approaches was the image
of cities, formulated both by the citizens themselves and by people from
elsewhere in the Netherlands or from abroad. These disparate images
contained all the elements mentioned above, sometimes in a stereotypical
way, sometimes in an innovative one.7 In this approach, even post-modern
representation has been combined with quantitative reconstruction.
In the Netherlands, as in many other countries, the teaching of urban

history is closely related to traditions and developments in research.
Therefore, what follows will deal with the specific choices which have
been made within these traditions and developments. These choices have
clearly been more explicit in advanced courses than in introductory ones.
Introductory courses in urban history

To gain some insight into the way urban history is taught at Dutch
universities, a small questionnaire was circulated among the different history
departments at the universities of Amsterdam (two), Groningen, Leiden,
Utrecht, Maastricht, Rotterdam and Nijmegen, and also among the technical
universities where history is incorporated into the curriculum: Eindhoven,
Enschede and the agricultural university of Wageningen.8
7
P. Kooij, ‘The images of Dutch cities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, in: Roman Czaja, ed.,
Das Bild und die Wahrnehmung der Stadt und der Städtische Gesellschaft im Hanseraum im
Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeitt, (Torun 2004), 259-277.
8
I would like to thank Hans Buiter, Adri Albert de la Bruheze, Karel Davids, Marjolein ’t Hart, Paul
Klep, Ad Knotter, Paul van de Laar, Harry Lintsen, Maarten Prak, Bernard Rulof, and Thera Wijsenbeek
for the information they gave to mehave provided. Without their help this contribution could not
have been written.
33
With the exception of the University of Amsterdam, there are no

compulsary courses in urban history at Dutch universities. In the
Bachelor’s degree phase at best there are some optional courses in the
second and third years. In the first, introductory, year, urban history is
only taught in an indirect way. Towns and cities appear only when they
fit into the general story. Thus there is teaching on the fall of Antwerp,
the rise of Amsterdam as a port city, the siege of Groningen, the treaty of
Nijmegen, the development of the court in The Hague, the enormous
migration to Rotterdam, and so on.
This approach continues in the second and third years, but at this
stage there are also courses in which towns and cities are treated in a
way that fits into the framework of urban history. In Groningen, for
instance, the second year is organised along thematic lines – cultural,
social/economic, political and non-western history – and in the context
of economic and social history, every year there is an option entitled
‘The industrial city’ (5-10 ECTS, 20 students). In this course the city is
defined as a microcosmos in which almost all aspects of economic and
social history can be studied. Although in this respect it might seem that
the city is being treated as a sort of container, this is, in fact, not the case
because the variable of space is omnipresent.
The Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam has a Bachelor’s degree

programme which is partly designed along thematic lines. In the economic
and social domain, a general course is offered on urban systems and
urban functions every two years, centred on a particular aspect, for
instance water in the city (5 + 5 ECTS, 10-15 students). In addition,
every two years a course on the urban history of Amsterdam is given.
This course is partly organized by the department of art and architectural
history, which organizes additional courses in urban development and
architecture. In the other Amsterdam university, the University of
Amsterdam, students in their second year take a compulsory course on
‘Urban society and urban culture’, which consists of a general element,
covering all periods, and a thematic element, in which a special topic is
chosen on which an essay has to be written (10 ECTS).
In Utrecht there are special Bachelor’s degree programmes devoted

to the city: ‘from Babylon to Brooklyn’, the creation of urban images in
the Dutch Republic, the social structure of Roman cities, and Carthage.
All these courses are optional. In Maastricht there is an eight-week course
– developed for University College Maastricht and taught in English – on
34
Netherlands
European urban history. This introduces the subject through the work of
well-known urban historians (Mumford, Dyos, Sutcliffe, Rodger), followed
by an exploration of the relations between planning and urban culture.
In Leiden there are also Bachelor’s degree programmes in urban history
with changing topics. In 2005 the topics were ghettos in American cities
and labour quarters in the city of Leiden.
In Groningen, and in Wageningen, there is also a course on

environmental history (5 ECTS, 20-40 students) in which much attention
is paid to urban environmental problems and the urbanization of the
countryside. At the technical universities of Twente and Eindhoven some
attention in given to urban history in courses on civil technology.
In their third year, at almost all the universities, history students choose
a number of special subjects in which they conduct their own research,
based on printed or manuscript sources. Among the topics, which usually
change every year, there are always urban ones. Sometimes these topics
simply offer an urban context, but others contain a real urban variable.
In Groningen in 2004/05, two of the 20 courses could be labelled as
urban history courses: ‘Sex in the city: the nineteenth century metropolis’,
and ‘The city as a text’. Topics at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam
included guilds in an urban setting, urban culture and public services. In
Leiden there were courses on migration in an urban context, and in
Utrecht on urban fraternities. In Nijmegen a research course in urban
history is offered every year. The same is the case at the University of
Amsterdam (Urban history as a concept, How to write urban history?).
Some of the BA theses are derived from these courses.
Some universities have the advantage that their history department

has a chair in the history of the city in which they are based. This is the
case in Rotterdam and in Leiden.9 In the near future the University of
Leiden will also have a chair devoted to the history of The Hague. In all
cases courses on the history of these specific cities are offered on an
optional basis. The universities of Groningen, Maastricht and Tilburg
have special chairs for regional history. In Groningen the person holding
this chair offers two modules on town-country relations (20 ECTS, 10-20
students), for students in their second and third years, which primarily
focus on the regional history of the north of the Netherlands. The first
module covers prehistory, medieval and early modern times while the
9
The chair for the history of Utrecht is is currently vacant at the moment.
35
second concentrates on modern history. Both modules contain a

combination of archaeology, linguistics and urban and regional history.
The regional chair in Maastricht covers the urban triangle of Maastricht,
Aachen and Liège, while the one in Tilburg incorporates the cultural
history of towns in the province of North Brabant.
Urban history at the Master’s degree stage

At most universities, the main part of the Master’s degree programme in
history, which currently takes one year, consists of essay-based courses
involving original research. In many cases these courses are linked to
research groups, which sometimes focus on urban history. At the Vrije
Universiteit in Amsterdam, for instance, teaching is concentrated around
the research topic ‘Transformations of towns and countryside’, which is
studied by economic and social historians, archeologists and architectural
historians. The historians, in particular, cover issues such as public services
and citizenship in early modern times, ecosystems and the transformation
of urban functions in the late medieval period, and the changing function
of the urban fringe in the nineteenth century. The study of cultural heritage,
which often has an urban setting, is also part of the teaching for this research
topic. In Groningen, two courses out of fifteen are devoted to urban history:
‘The image of the city of Rome’ and ‘Industrial heritage’, which also
incorporates the countryside (10 ECTS each). At the University of Amsterdam,
an MA seminar on Berlin has recently been introduced. In addition, every
year Nijmegen and Utrecht hold some MA seminars that can be labelled as
urban history. Some MA theses are also written in this field.
In every history department one or more Research Master’s programmes

have been established or are under construction. These programmes, which
take two years, are designed for top students who aspire to an academic
career. Most are still at an experimental stage, but nevertheless it has already
become clear that urban history will play its part. The Research Master’s
programme in Utrecht, for instance, is entitled ‘Cities, state and citizenship’.
Leiden has recently launched a programme centred on migration studies,
which of course includes urban migration. The Research Master’s
programmes at the other universities have more general titles, but they also
offer opportunities to conduct research on urban topics. In Groningen, for
instance, the elites of small provincial towns are studied within the context
of a Research Master’s programme entitled ‘Modern and contemporary
history’. And in Twente, some aspects of urban history can be studied during
the Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society.
36
Netherlands
Some aspects of the research conducted in the Research Master’s

programmes is closely related to that concentrated in the national research
school in social and economic history, the N.W. Posthumus Institute. One
of the seven research programmes offered here is called ‘Regions and
space’ and covers many aspects of urban history. Here, PhD students
who are investigating urban topics receive part of their training.
A very special MA programme is the Master’s degree in European

Urbanization, which is co-ordinated by the Centre for Urban History at
the University of Leicester. The University of Leiden has been involved in
the MA, which consists of a set of courses at five universities, for many
years.10 In the near future the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam will join in
this collaboration.
Evaluation and prospects

If the whole range of courses is taken into account, some specializations
become clear. A very prominent one is the relationship between towns
and countryside, which is the main characteristic of urban history as taught
in Groningen. In Wageningen, too, where history is only offered as an
optional module, this is the most important specialization. The same is
the case at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, where research and research-
related teaching concentrates on the urban fringe. In Maastricht this topic
is embedded in a more general programme on boundaries and boundary-
crossing urban networks.
Urban culture is a second specialization. It can be found at the

universities of Utrecht, Maastricht, Groningen, Amsterdam and Leiden.
Civic culture is a notable feature within this field of urban culture and is
taught at Utrecht, Groningen, Amsterdam and Nijmegen. Inter-urban
migration is also a topic, which is taught at several universities, especially
Rotterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Groningen. Migration is, of
course, one way of defining urban networks, which also have an economic
dimension. Courses on this aspect are offered in Rotterdam and Groningen.
Fortunately there is also some attention paid to theoretical issues.

This is especially the case at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and the
University of Amsterdam. But given the special urban character of Dutch
historiography, almost every course which is labelled urban history
incorporates some theoretical discussions.
10
The other universities involved are Berlin, Dublin, and Stockholm.
37
At present, most Dutch scholars who call themselves urban historians

are involved in writing the histories of individual towns and cities. A lot
of energy, for instance, is being spent on the multi-volume histories of
Amsterdam and The Hague, the publication of which is at the halfway
stage. These and other urban histories sometimes demonstrate very
interesting examples of co-operation between economic, social, political
and cultural historians. One may hope and expect that the results of
such co-operations will be reflected in the teaching of urban history at
Dutch universities in the near future.
38
France
France
Frédéric Moret and Denis Menjot
Université de Marne La Vallée et Université de Lyon 2
L’historiographie urbaine française, longtemps timide - du moins pour

certaines périodes de l’histoire - en regard de ses homologues anglo-
saxonnes1 , connaît depuis quelques années un développement accéléré.
En témoignent notamment la création de la Société Française d’Histoire
Urbaine2 , de sa revue Histoire Urbaine ou la publication de nombreuses
monographies et de travaux collectifs comme l’Atlas des villes de France
ou l’Histoire Urbaine de l’Europe, de l’Antiquité à nos jours3 . Il est donc
tout à fait légitime de s’interroger sur la façon dont ce foisonnement de
travaux scientifiques trouve un débouché dans la formation initiale ou
complémentaire des étudiants dans les établissements universitaires français.
Le questionnaire portant sur l’enseignement de l’histoire urbaine

élaboré par Richard Rodger et Denis Menjot à l’initiative de l’Association
Européenne d’Histoire Urbaine, a été très largement diffusé en utilisant
le réseau des membres de la Société Française d’Histoire Urbaine. Toutes
les Universités et les établissements d’enseignement supérieur (Ecoles
Normales Supérieures, Ecole Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Ecoles d’architecture) où l’on enseigne
1
Voir à ce sujet le bilan fait en 1992 par Bernard Lepetit, « La historia urbana en Francia: veinte años de
investigación », Secuencia, revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales, 1992, n°24 ; l’article est paru en
français dans Enquête, anthropologie, histoire, sociologie, n°’4, 1996, pp.11-34. Pour un aperçu de la
production historique des années 1965-1996, on dispose d’un guide bibliographique, L’histoire urbaine
en France (Moyen Age - XXe siècle). Guide bibliographique (1965-1996), Paris, l’Harmattan, 1998
2
http://www.sfhu.msh-paris.fr/home.htm
3
Jean-Luc Pinol (dir.), Histoire de l’Europe Urbaine, 2 tomes, Paris, Le Seuil, 2003.
39
l’histoire ont été touchées, dans la mesure où chacune compte un ou

plusieurs membres de la SFHU dans ses rangs. Malgré plusieurs relances,
les réponses ne nous ont permis de connaître la situation que dans un
peu plus d’une moitié des établissements concernés. Nous avons donc
complété de façon significative notre information par une étude
systématique des sites web des Universités et des discussions informelles
avec des collègues travaillant en histoire urbaine4 .
Le faible taux de réponse au questionnaire est déjà en lui-même

révélateur . Par-delà les aléas classiques et prévisibles de ce type d’enquêtes,
il est en grande partie un aveu de l’inexistence d’un enseignement spécifique
d’histoire urbaine. On peut y voir aussi un embarras – perceptible également
dans les réponses – face à l’objet même de l’étude. Tout se passe comme si
les Universités françaises n’avaient pas réfléchi le contenu de leurs formations
en terme de thématique ou de champs de recherche. Le questionnaire a
d’ailleurs bien souvent joué le rôle d’un révélateur dans des Universités
qui pouvaient se penser comme particulièrement compétentes dans ce
champ, du fait des spécialités de leurs enseignants-chercheurs.
1. L’histoire urbaine et l’offre de formation des établissements

d’enseignement supérieur
Paradoxalement, les réponses les plus précises et les plus détaillées
émanent d’Universités de création plutôt récentes, provinciales et/ou de taille
assez réduite. Moins anciennes, et donc moins marquées par des structures
traditionnelles, ces Universités ont souvent été en première ligne des
différentes vagues de réforme, qui – spécificité française ? – rythment la vie
universitaire française au gré des changements ministériels. Si des formations
installées depuis des décennies peuvent se contenter le plus souvent d’un
léger toilettage de leur offre, des établissements plus récents, moins installés
ont dû faire l’effort de s’inscrire plus précisément dans le cadre des directives
officielles et de justifier du contenu de leurs programmes. L’Université
française se situe, de plus, à un moment important de son histoire ; l’adoption
du modèle dit européen du LMD (pour licence, master, doctorat) conduit
chaque Université à refondre totalement ses programmes et ses cursus. Peu
sensible dans les réponses au questionnaire (pour des raisons de calendrier,
la réforme commence à peine à se mettre en place dans les universités),
cette évolution peut avoir des incidences sur la mise en place d’enseignements
spécifiquement d’histoire urbaine, notamment au niveau master.
4
Certains sites sont cependant beaucoup trop imprécis pour permettre de connaître la part exacte de
l’histoire urbaine dans les programmes d’enseignement.
40
France
A notre connaissance, aucune Université française, à l’exception de Tours,

n’a organisé de diplôme d’histoire (licence, master...) intitulé « histoire
urbaine ». La plupart du temps, les diplômes et les cursus couvrent
l’ensemble du champ historique (licence ou master d’histoire) voire des
sciences humaines et sociales. Aucune Université n’a visiblement jugé utile
de singulariser (même au niveau Master) son offre de formation à une seule
thématique, aussi large soit-elle, préférant une conception beaucoup plus
généraliste. Cette attitude est probablement à relier avec la pesanteur que
constitue le traditionnel découpage des enseignements (et des enseignants)
selon les quatre périodes de l’histoire. Lorsque la question d’une
segmentation d’un cursus d’histoire (uniquement dans les plus grandes
universités) se pose, la tendance naturelle est de mettre en place dans un
master, une mention ou le plus souvent une spécialité d’histoire antique,
d’histoire médiévale ou d’histoire contemporaine ou d’histoire moderne
et contemporaine. Ce faisant, l’histoire urbaine ne connaît pas un sort si
différent des autres champs thématiques dans la plupart des établissements.
Au niveau Master (ou Diplôme d’Études Approfondies pour les Universités
qui n’ont pas encore intégré le nouveau système), certaines Universités (les
plus grandes) ont parfois distingué, à côté des ruptures chronologiques,
des profils thématiques. On distingue alors des diplômes privilégiant
l’histoire politique, l’histoire économique et sociale, voire l’histoire
culturelle5 ; l’histoire urbaine, au même titre que l’histoire rurale où se
retrouvent tous ces aspects - et bien d’autres - n’a pas été retenue en tant
que telle. Avec une spécialité de Master intitulée Histoire urbaine, l’Université
de Tours fait figure d’exception. En deuxième année de ce diplôme, sont
abordés “des thèmes variés allant des formes, fonctions et pratiques de
l’urbain aux pouvoirs urbains sans négliger les dimensions sociales et
économiques de l’histoire urbaine”6 . Dans la spécialité archéologie. villes
et territoires du même master de la même université, un cours d’archéologie
urbaine est dispensé en première année et en deuxième année un cours
d’archéologie des villes de l’Europe du Nord-ouest au Haut Moyen Age.
2. Place de l’histoire urbaine dans l’enseignement universitaire

La thématique urbaine est cependant assez largement présente, à
l’intérieur de cursus plus généralistes. Elle est ainsi présente de façon
quasi générale, au hasard des changements réguliers de programmes,
5
C’est le cas dans la plus importante Université française par ses effectifs en histoire, l’Université
Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Cf. les informations disponibles sur le site web : http://www.univ-paris1.fr/
6
Tours compte aussi une Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Villes et territoires.
41
notamment au niveau licence (entendu au sens actualisé par la réforme

« licence, master, doctorat », des trois premières années d’études
universitaires). Sans être individualisée en tant que module spécifique,
la thématique urbaine est ainsi choisie comme thème d’un cours. Ainsi,
selon les années, le (ou un) cours d’histoire médiévale, moderne ou
contemporaine peut être consacré à la ville, ou au pouvoir royal ou à la
noblesse... Bien évidemment, en histoire ancienne, dans une grande
majorité des universités, les cités grecques et /ou les villes romaines sont
presque toujours l’objet d’un cours. La question d’histoire médiévale
mise au programme des concours nationaux de recrutement, CAPES
d’histoire et géographie et Agrégation d’histoire pour 2005 et 2006 « les
villes d’Italie au XIIIe siècle », contraint pratiquement toutes les universités
françaises à consacrer pendant deux ans un enseignement sur ce sujet
dans le cadre de la préparation à ces concours.
A quelques exceptions près (un cours de première année de licence à

Marne la Vallée envisage « l’histoire des villes de l’Antiquité à nos jours »;
un cours de master 2 à Perpignan sur « villes et acculturation », étudie la
formation des villes, leur évolution morphologique, leurs institutions et
les phénomènes d’acculturation dans une perspective comparative selon
les époques et les civilisations, un cours de master à Paris IV porte sur
« l’histoire des villes du Moyen Age à nos jours »), les cours d’histoire
urbaine sont toujours étroitement inscrits dans une période historique.
Les champs géographiques retenus sont assez larges, à l’échelle du
continent européen : villes de l’Occident médiéval (Université Bordeaux
3), les villes européennes 1850-1950 (Université Lyon 2) même si le cas
français est souvent dominant. En revanche, à l’exception des Etats-Unis
en histoire contemporaine et du monde musulman au Moyen Age, l’espace
extra-européen est fort peu envisagé. De façon somme toute logique, les
intitulés des cours se font souvent l’écho des préoccupations de recherche
particulièrement développées dans chaque Université ; divers intitulés
s’expliquent ainsi par une proximité géographique (les villes d’Italie à
Grenoble, les grandes villes du monde atlantique à Nantes, ports et
structuration des espaces littoraux dans l’Europe atlantique (XIIIe-XVIe
siècles) à La Rochelle, en master 2..), par des thèmes de recherche (La ville
au Maghreb à Paris 1, Des hommes et des villes en Afrique à Paris 7...), par
un intérêt local (l’histoire contemporaine de Paris est ainsi enseignée à
Paris 1, Paris 7 et Versailles Saint-Quentin). Plusieurs Universités abordent
la thématique urbaine à travers les relations ville campagne (Universités
de Dijon, La Rochelle, Le Mans, Marne La Vallée, Corte : villes et campagnes
42
France
de l’Italie médiévale, Besançon : villes et campagnes du royaume de France

du XIIIe au XVe siècle : démographie, économie et société ...), souvent
dans le cadre d’une approche globale d’histoire sociale.
Le bilan de l’enseignement de l’histoire urbaine dans les Universités

françaises est donc mitigé : la thématique urbaine est présente assez
largement dans les cours de niveau licence, au gré des changements de
programme, sans qu’une place particulière lui soit accordée. Au niveau
supérieur (masters, ou maîtrise-DEA), l’histoire urbaine est abordée d’un
point de vue historiographique et méthodologique, notamment à partir
de l’étude des sources textuelles et des traces matérielles spécifiques.
C’est donc lorsqu’il s’agit d’initier les étudiants à la recherche historique
que l’histoire urbaine apparaît comme un champ spécifique. Cette
approche accompagne plus qu’elle ne précède la multiplication des
recherches en histoire urbaine, tant au niveau master que doctorat. Plus
que le résultat d’une démarche intellectuelle concertée, la présence de
l’histoire urbaine à ce niveau découle d’une demande liée aux
thématiques de recherche des étudiants avancés7 .
3. L’histoire urbaine au service de formations professionnalisantes

Paradoxalement, les historiens de l’urbain ont plus souvent l’occasion
de formaliser leur approche disciplinaire dans le cadre d’autres cursus
que l’histoire. En tant que « prestataires de service », les historiens
construisent des cours d’histoire urbaine à destination d’étudiants non
historiens mais concernés par le fait urbain. On peut citer ainsi les
formations professionnelles destinant aux métiers du tourisme ou du
patrimoine (diplôme de guide-interprète national à l’Université de
Clermont-Ferrand, DESS Gestion du patrimoine local à l’Université
d’Orléans, parmi de nombreux exemples), ou de l’urbanisme (DESS
“stratégies d’aménagement des villes petites et moyennes de l’Université
de Clermont-Ferrand). Dans une perspective de formation à la recherche
dans d’autres disciplines, l’apport de l’histoire urbaine a pu apparaître
nécessaire : cours d’histoire des villes dans le Master « Cité Mobilités »
(Université de Marne la Vallée / Institut Français d’Urbanisme) à
orientation sociologique et urbanistique.
7
Signalons une inititiative d’enseignement commun au niveau doctorat, celle des historiens médiévistes
de l’Université de Lyon 2, et des facultés d’histoire et de géographie et d’études arabes e islamiques
de l’Université Complutense de Madrid qui ont organisé avec et à la Casa de Velazquez (Ecole Française
de Madrid) un premier atelier doctoral thématique international pour doctorants médiévistes sur la
Ville dans l’Occident méditerranéen au Moyen Age d’une semaine en septembre 2004.
43
Ce tableau serait cependant très incomplet s’il se limitait aux seuls

enseignements dispensés dans les cursus d’histoire des Universités. On
trouve en effet de nombreux enseignements d’histoire urbaine en dehors
des départements d’histoire des Universités. Au premier chef, il convient
de souligner la place occupée par l’histoire urbaine dans l’enseignement
des Écoles d’architecture. Souvent particulièrement attentifs à la
morphologie urbaine et à sa genèse, ces cours sont dispensés tout au
long des études d’architecture. L’accent est bien entendu mis sur la
période contemporaine, même si l’on inscrit les évolutions récentes dans
la profondeur historique. La spécificité française de l’enseignement de
l’architecture, qui dépend du ministère de la Culture et non de celui de
l’Éducation Nationale, aboutit à une certaine étanchéité entre les deux
milieux, ce qui nuit à l’émergence d’une véritable communauté, malgré
les efforts faits pour multiplier les échanges, notamment dans le cadre
de la Société Française d’Histoire Urbaine.
Conclusion
La vitalité de la recherche en histoire urbaine en France n’a pas encore
débouché sur la constitution d’une véritable filière spécifique
d’enseignement universitaire. Etroitement liée à l’organisation interne
de l’institution et de la profession, la structuration des filières de
l’enseignement historique en France semble n’avoir qu’une très faible
capacité d’évolution.
44
Spain
Spain
Isabel del Val Valdivieso and Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu
University of Valladolid and University of Cantabria
There is a long and rich tradition of urban history in Spain. Throughout

the twentieth century, as new approaches were being forged, historians’
attention was drawn to towns and cities from many different viewpoints,
prominent amongst which were the economic, social and institutional, as
well as the perspective of town planning. This interest in urban history
can be seen in research and to a lesser extent teaching. We address both
aspects here in an effort to provide a general overview of the current
situation in Spanish universities.
University studies in history generally lead to a degree qualification. A

doctorate may subsequently be taken which, after successful completion of
a thesis, leads to the award of a PhD. A degree qualification also enables the
holder to enrol on what are known as ‘Own Postgraduate Studies’ courses
(Estudios propios de postgrado), offered by universities at their own initiative,
which lead to a Specialist or Masters qualification being awarded. Degrees
in history are based on a standard curriculum in which common core courses
are taken in all Spanish universities, in addition to those laid down by the
university itself. This accounts for the fact that although courses share a
common base, clear differences exist between them. An analysis of these
curricula reveals firstly that Urban History does not figure amongst the
common core courses, and consequently is not studied in all History degrees.
This means that students will only be offered one or more optional courses
on Urban History if a university has expressed a specific wish to do so.
45
Relatively few universities offer courses in urban history, and in most

cases only one is available to students, as at the universities of Valencia
and Salamanca. However, there are institutions with a wider range of
urban history provision, such as the universities of Alicante, Tarragona
(Rovira i Virgili) and Seville. However, in many cases, although the term
‘urban’ does not actually appear in the title of the course, the syllabus
does address urban issues. This is true in most instances where courses
are termed ‘Social and Economic History of …’, as at the University of
Huelva. The urban content of these courses is sometimes shared with
rural topics (The Rural and Urban Environment in …), although when it
is the urban environment which is emphasised, the course title usually
makes this clear.
In terms of course content, some universities, such as the University

of La Laguna, offer a general approach with ‘An Introduction to Urban
History’. Similarly, degrees in Humanities at the universities of Jaume I
de Castellón and Castilla la Mancha, bear the titles ‘The City in History’
and ‘History of the European City’ respectively. Reference is, however,
often made to some more specific aspect of urban history. From a
geographical perspective, most courses seem to refer to Europe, and
more specifically to Western Europe, although there is a course on the
history of Spanish American cities at the University of Seville. With regard
to specific subject matter, there appear to be two major fields. Firstly
there is the social and economic perspective, which is sometimes reflected
in the title of the course. In most cases courses are of a more general
nature, with particular attention focused on the urban environment, as
appears to be the case at the University of Granada. In addition to this,
local urban history arouses much interest. This is doubtless the result,
albeit indirectly, of two factors: the political makeup of Spain as a country
of autonomous regions; and the approach which prevails in pre-university
studies in the field of humanities. This interest in local urban history may
also be partly inherited, albeit much altered, from traditional academic
studies. Examples can be found in the Complutense University in Madrid,
where a course on ‘The History of Madrid in Contemporary Times’ is
available. The University of León, also offers amongst its optional courses
‘The History of León’. It is true that in both cases the title of the course
may be somewhat misleading, since in the first instance it coincides with
one of the current Autonomous Communities, and in the second with
what was an actual kingdom during the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the
bulk of the course content in both cases focuses on the respective cities.
46
Spain
Finally, if we consider chronological periods, it can be seen that the

courses available range from antiquity to the modern day. At the University
of the Basque Country there is a course on ‘City and Spectacle in the
Ancient World’; at Oviedo on ‘Urban History in the Middle Ages’; at Murcia
on ‘Urban History in Modern Times’; and at Gerona a course entitled
‘City and Territory’, which focuses on the twentieth century. However,
the number of courses offered for each period varies considerably, with
medieval history being the most popular. Other universities offering
courses covering this period include Salamanca, Cantabria, Valencia, the
Basque Country, Alicante, the Autónoma de Madrid and Seville.
So far our attention has been focused solely on history courses. However,
there are courses linked to urban history in other faculties and as part of
other degrees, particularly in Art History, Architecture and Geography. In
these courses, attention is mainly centred on the material aspects of towns.
There is therefore less of an emphasis on socio-cultural, economic or political-
institutional factors than is usual in history degrees, or degrees in the
humanities, although this by no means implies that these aspects are ignored.
Degrees in Art History occasionally include some courses related to urban
history. These courses aim to show cities as architectural settings, as
backdrops for works of art, places where sculptures may be displayed, or as
artistic manifestations in themselves that may be transformed through specific
intervention for aesthetic or other purposes. In the case of Geography, the
favoured focus is on urban space, development and planning, leading to an
emphasis on the last two centuries. The approach generally adopted by
geographers involves attempting to identify those factors that might have
influenced the development of the city, and how these related together.
These courses thus aim to explain the present form and character of a
particular city, or an area of it, taking into account both natural conditions
and more recent human activity. All faculties of Architecture include courses
on town planning and its development over the centuries, explaining why
architecture syllabuses always contain an element of urban history, and
sometimes make specific reference to the subject.
The general position of urban history teaching in Spanish universities

(in the fields of History, Humanities, Art History, Geography and
Architecture) reflects both the social and political interest of today’s Spain
(universities are aiming to cater for public thirst for knowledge about
both the recent past and more distant times), and the state of academic
research into the city. Research teams studying urban related issues are
grouped within specialised research clusters in university faculties. In
47
general, it is in the areas of Architecture and History that the strongest

research teams have been formed. It should be stressed, however, that
there is a long tradition of research into urban history, which has given
rise to numerous publications in most Spanish universities.
In Architecture faculties it is easy to find teams of town planners

interested in urban history, as is the case in the Polytechnic University of
Cataluña, and in Valladolid. This is clearly reflected both in the teaching
they offer and the output of their research teams. In the area of History
three major study periods are prominent: Al-Andalus, the Middle Ages and
the Modern era. In general, research teams consist of specialists in a
particular period (Muslim, medieval, or modern), although on occasions
links between researchers working in different eras may be established
and there is no lack of cross-disciplinary co-operation. For example, there
is the mini congress on the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries being held at
the University of Cantabria; the seminar on medieval urban history
organised by the Higher Council for Scientific Research, to which academics
from various universities are invited, and the cross-disciplinary group at
the University of Valladolid. In the latter case, research focuses on medieval
Castilian cities, analysed from different perspectives by a team made up of
researchers from the University of Valladolid itself and the University of
Cantabria. Experts from different backgrounds (social history, the history
of ideas, economics, institutional history, town planning, hygiene and
health) use a variety of written, archaeological and iconographic sources,
to study different aspects of urban history, ranging from town planning to
social conflict, sociability and the role of water in the life and development
of medieval cities. Work on local urban history should be added to this
survey of research, since it comes from a similar background and has also
influenced the nature of urban history teaching. In terms of research, teams
are made up of experts on varying chronological periods with interests in
specific cities, such as Santiago de Compostela.
In general it seems that the strength of urban history research at a

university is a good indicator of the weight given to the subject in the
academic curriculum, and also indicates where urban history is likely to
be included in other broad based courses. Moreover, the most important
factor determining whether the subject is offered at postgraduate level is
the presence or absence of research teams. This can clearly be seen when
analysing both PhD and Masters courses or any speciality offered by
Spanish universities: where these courses are in urban history, research
teams working at the university are also based in this field.
48
Spain
Third cycle or postgraduate studies are organised into two specific stages:
successful completion of the first stage is essential before moving on to the
second, which is the writing of a doctoral thesis. These courses usually cover
broad thematic areas, allowing PhD students a fairly wide choice when
deciding on their thesis topic. This explains why there may often be no
course specifically entitled ‘urban history’, although PhDs are regularly
awarded in this subject, as is the case at the universities of Valladolid and
Cantabria. There are, of course, doctoral courses that do focus on aspects of
urban history, approached from varying perspectives and covering different
periods. The University of Granada offers one such course entitled ‘Cities
and Cultures in the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean’, and there is also
one at the University of Oviedo dealing with the medieval city. The University
of Seville, a pioneer in the study of the urban medieval past, currently offers
a doctoral course on ‘The Theory and Practice of Architectural and Urban
Restoration’; and there is also a course at the University of Murcia entitled,
‘Urban Life and Town Planning in the Mediterranean Environment’, which
deals with a broad historical period ranging from Prehistory to the end of
the Middle Ages. There are many more courses, which, although not focusing
directly on urban history, address the issue of the history of cities. In some
instances these courses focus on heritage, as is the case at Huelva and Castilla
la Mancha. Other courses, such as at Jaén, focus on archaeology, and Alcalá
de Henares has one concerned with both heritage and archaeology.
There are also courses that deal specifically with urban history. Some
examples may be found at the universities in Madrid. The Autonomous
University provides its postgraduate students in history with the opportunity
to take urban-oriented courses centred on the Early Modern History of Spain
and the creation of citizenship in Spain and the Americas. The Complutense
University offers a new example of the link between research and teaching,
by including in the Ancient and Medieval History syllabus, courses dealing
with the history of cities in Greece, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula and the Crown
of Castile. The University of Cantabria includes in its postgraduate history
course, credits for the study of urban landscape in medieval times. The
University of Barcelona is a similar case, offering a course on urban society
as part of a doctoral programme focusing on the medieval and early modern
periods. The University of Valladolid, whilst not offering courses with a
specifically urban title, does include urban history as part of the content of
other courses concerned with social, economic or institutional change.
As was pointed out earlier, Spanish universities have their own specialist
and Masters courses. In both cases, urban history studies are included. Since
these courses are geared towards the labour market rather than research,
49
most are found in faculties of Architecture. The Polytechnic University of

Cataluña offers several postgraduate courses linked to this field, such as
‘City, Space and Culture’, ‘City and Sustainable Territory’ and ‘Architecture
History and the City’. Some hydrology courses also offer a specialist
qualification in urban hydraulics. Other examples worthy of mention include
the courses in town planning offered at the Universities of Gerona and
Zaragoza (the latter also has wide experience in the field of research into
urban history), and the course in Heritage at the University of Valladolid.
Thus far we have given a general overview of the current state of urban
history teaching in Spain, which inevitably has close links with the state of
research. Due to the reorganisation of university teaching in Spanish
universities over the last ten years, it can be seen that, although there are
important research teams, this has not had sufficient impact on teaching
practice, which often lacks clear definition and cohesion. Courses dealing
solely with urban studies are few and far between, as a result of which students
are often not afforded sufficient opportunities to delve deeply into urban
history. This reflects the fact that on most occasions urban history is forced to
share the focus of attention with other courses that deal with more traditional
topics such as social change, economics, culture and institutions. There also
appears to be a tendency to pigeonhole urban history, both from a thematic
and chronological viewpoint, leading to an imbalance in the courses offered
by the various university departments. On the one hand faculties which are
more closely linked to the human sciences (degrees in History or Humanities),
focus on questions relating to social history and associated fields, whilst
curricula for degrees such as Geography and Architecture, are more
concerned with the physical aspects of towns and town planning.
There is therefore a need to highlight the benefit students can derive

from an insight into urban history, by offering a wide-ranging vision of the
subject incorporating a more interdisciplinary approach. The future is bright,
if we consider the growing social and academic interest in the subject as
well as the changes coming to fruition as a result of the application of the
Bologna agreements. The creation of a European Higher Education Space
will change the organisation of both studies and teaching methods, at the
same time as it fosters a renewal of course content. To this should be added
the benefits of replicating the dynamic approach towards research into urban
history displayed by certain knowledge areas. The situation seems to offer a
good opportunity for students to gain knowledge of and delve into the history
of the urban world in its many aspects, and in its various historical stages.
Doubtless, full advantage will be taken of the possibilities.
50
Portugal
Portugal
Amélia Aguiar Andrade
Université Nouvelle de Lisbonne
L’extrême complexité de la réalité urbaine suscite une grande diversité

d’approches fécondes qui se traduisent par autant de pratiques
enseignantes, à l’instar de la géographie, de la sociologie, de l’économie
ou de la démographie urbaines qui connaissent actuellement au Portugal
un dynamisme considérable. Il faut d’ailleurs rappeler que c’est la
géographie qui a ouvert le cycle d’intérêt pour la réflexion et l’étude de
la ville rejointe, plus tard, par l’histoire.1
Une expérience récente

Toutefois, le moment n’est peut-être pas bien choisi pour dresser un
panorama de l’enseignement de l’histoire urbaine au Portugal. En effet, les
défis lancés par le processus de Bologne impliquent des grandes
transformations dans l’organisation de l’enseignement universitaire qui sont
actuellement en cours de préparation et/ou de mise en œuvre. Certaines
informations mentionnées ci-après pourraient donc ne plus être d’actualité
à brève échéance, suite aux réformes des cursus qui vont être engagées.
Par ailleurs, la baisse de la population estudiantine universitaire qui
caractérise le Portugal à l’aube du XXIème siècle2 touche déjà les licences
d’Histoire: certaines formations offertes jusqu’alors par les universités
privées sont supprimées et le nombre d’étudiants baisse dans les
1
João Carlos Garcia (1992), ‘As cidades na obra de Orlando Ribeiro’, Penélope- fazer e Desfazer a
História, nº7, (Lisboa 1992), 107-8.
2
M.Lourdes Rodgrigues, ‘As Ciências Sociais e Humanas numa sociedade em mudança, conference
public’, faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, 10.03. 2004.
51
établissements publics, une situation qui touche aussi le nombre de

candidats potentiellement intéressés par l’histoire urbaine ou les
disciplines qui lui sont associées. Autant de circonstances qui impliquent
que le cadre d’observation de ce texte soit limité à l’enseignement
supérieur public, lequel a toujours été clairement dominant au Portugal
dans le domaine des sciences sociales et humaines, puisque les
établissements privés ne sont apparus qu’après la Révolution du 25 avril
1974 et se sont toujours beaucoup rapprochées des universités publiques,
en ce qui concerne les programmes et le corps enseignant.
Une situation pas très brillante...

Contrairement à beaucoup d’autres pays européens, au Portugal,
l’intérêt pour l’Histoire urbaine n’a pas encore réussi à susciter
l’organisation d’une quelconque formation spécifique, qu’il s’agisse d’une
licence, d’une maîtrise, voire d’un programme de doctorat. Il n’existe
pas non plus de centres de recherche consacrés à l’Histoire urbaine, ni
de revue spécialisée sur cette thématique. L’Histoire urbaine est donc
enseignée dans le cadre de formations plus généralistes – Histoire,
Patrimoine, entre autres – ou fait l’objet de séminaires intégrés dans les
formations en Histoire post-licence.
À vrai dire, l’histoire urbaine n’est apparue dans les Universités

portugaises, en tant que matière d’enseignement, qu’à partir des années
1980, associée au mouvement de mise en place de formations post-licence.
À l’initiative d’un médiéviste, Oliveira Marques, un séminaire biannuel
sur l’histoire urbaine, portant sur l’étude des agglomérations urbaines du
Portugal médiéval, a été intégré dans le programme de la première
formation post-licence portugaise dans le domaine de l’histoire – la maîtrise
en Histoire Médiévale de l’Université Nouvelle de Lisbonne (1981).
A cette première initiative, ont vite succédé d’autres semblables, par

exemple à l’Université de Porto (1983) où, également dans le cadre d’une
maîtrise en Histoire médiévale, un séminaire a été introduit afin de
développer les questions concernant les institutions urbaines ainsi que
la composition sociale des magistratures locales. Un deuxième séminaire
a été créé par la suite afin de procéder à l’étude des institutions
représentatives et à l’analyse de leurs discours politiques. Ces deux
séminaires ne font plus partie actuellement de cette formation. Dans la
dernière décennie du XXème siècle, d’autres universités (U. Lisbonne,
U. Coimbra et U. Minho-Braga) ont intégré dans leurs programmes de
52
Portugal
maîtrise des séminaires portant sur la thématique urbaine, mais centrés

essentiellement sur l’étude des pouvoirs urbains ou sur la réflexion et/
ou l’étude prosopographique des élites locales.
D’une manière continue ou intermittente, un peu au gré des

disponibilités des professeurs et de l’intérêt des élèves, l’histoire urbaine
figure au programme des formations post-licence offertes par les
universités portugaises. Des séminaires centrés surtout sur l’époque
médiévale, ont comme champ spatial le territoire portugais, mais ils
attachent cependant une grande attention aux problématiques et aux
méthodologies de l’histoire urbaine européenne, en particulier à celles
proposées par l’historiographie francophone, anglo-saxonne, espagnole
et italienne, un fait auquel n’est pas étrangère la maîtrise de ces langues
par les professeurs et les étudiants de post-licence. Mais il est curieux
d’observer le manque d’engouement pour l’étude de la ville aux époques
Moderne et Contemporaine, précisément celles pour lesquelles les
sources disponibles sont les plus abondantes et diversifiées.3
C’est également de la fin du XXème siècle que date le développement

des formations post-licence dans le domaine de l’archéologie, dans les
Universités de Lisbonne, Coimbra et Porto. Grâce à la méthodologie
spécifique de l’archéologie urbaine – le séminaire reçoit parfois cette
désignation plus générale – il a été possible d’aborder des thématiques
pouvant éclairer des aspects relevant de l’histoire urbaine – culture
matérielle, logement, structures fortifiées, entre autres – bien que le
territoire portugais soit, cette fois encore, le cadre spatial privilégié
d’observation. Rien d’étonnant donc à ce qu’une plus grande attention
soit accordée aux principaux héritages urbains que le Portugal a assimilés
– romain et islamique – ou à certains aspects de l’archéologie dite
industrielle, de nature éminemment urbaine.4
L’enseignement de l’histoire urbaine n’apparaît dans les programmes

des licences d’Histoire (ou des mentions Histoire et Patrimoine) que
dans les années 1990, mais parmi les disciplines optionnelles que les
étudiants intéressés pouvaient choisir s’ils le souhaitaient. Il convient de
souligner dès à présent le manque notoire de consensus autour de la
3
Manuel C. Teixeira, ‘A história urbana em Portugal. Desenvolvimentos recentes’, Análise Social,
1993, XXVIII (121), 371-90.
4
Francisco Sande Lemos, ‘Arqueologia Urbana em Portugal: A cidade, o poder e o conhecimento’ ,
Arqueologia & História, 2002, 54, 245-253; Francisco Sande Lemos; Manuela Martins, ‘A Arqueologia
Urbana em Portugal’, Penélope- fazer e Desfazer a História, 1993, 7, 93-103.
53
désignation des disciplines destinées à l’étude de cette thématique,

puisque la dénomination Histoire Urbaine peut tout aussi bien devenir
Histoire de la Ville ou des Villes, sans que les contenus des programmes
soient vraiment différents. Ce flou peut être considéré comme le corollaire
d’une réflexion faible ou inexistante de la part de l’historiographie urbaine
sur ses objectifs, en se bornant, le plus souvent, à suivre la terminologie
en vigueur dans les établissements universitaires étrangers.
D’une manière générale, les disciplines enseignées suivent presque

toujours des programmes à caractère diachronique – souvent, depuis la
Mésopotamie jusqu’au XXème siècle (voir Histoire Urbaine I et II à
l’Université de Porto-UP-FL). Leur champ géographique couvre plus
particulièrement l’espace européen, mais il faut néanmoins préciser que
celui-ci est le plus souvent confiné à un axe méditerranéen, où la France
et l’Italie jouent un rôle de premier plan; les perspectives spatiales étant
élargies, notamment aux zones extra-européennes, uniquement à propos
de l’explication des origines des formes urbaines. Ces approches
omettent, ou évoquent d’une manière très simplifiée, l’analyse de la réalité
urbaine des franges spatiales européennes, en particulier les plus
éloignées de la Péninsule Ibérique, comme la Scandinavie ou l’Europe
de l’Est. Ces orientations s’expliquent, dans une certaine mesure, par la
tradition enseignante des universités portugaises, qui privilégie les
disciplines de nature informative, et par l’insertion culturelle du Portugal
dans le contexte d’une Europe occidentale d’héritage latin.
Toutefois, à l’Université Nouvelle de Lisbonne (UNL-FCSH), l’histoire

urbaine connaît un approfondissement plus important, puisque des
disciplines spécifiques sont prévues pour chacune des époques
chronologiques que recoupe traditionnellement l’histoire européenne :
H. Urbaine de l’Antiquité, H. Urbaine du Moyen Âge, H. Urbaine de
l’époque Moderne et H. Urbaine de l’époque contemporaine.
Il faut également citer, dans le cadre thématique associé à l’histoire

urbaine, les Histoires de la ville où sont implantées certaines des principales
universités, qui s’inscrivent, en grande partie, dans une stratégie
universitaire de connexion et de prestation de services aux communautés
où elles s’insèrent. La plupart du temps, cette stratégie permet non
seulement de consolider l’insertion et la visibilité locale de ces
établissements d’enseignement, mais aussi d’obtenir des soutiens financiers
pour la poursuite et/ou la publication de travaux de recherche sur le passé
de ces ensembles urbains. C’est le cas de l’Histoire de Porto à l’Université
54
Portugal
de Porto, ainsi que celles des villes de Coimbra et d’Évora enseignées dans
les universités de ces cités. Une fois encore, c’est à l’UNL-FCSH que l’on
trouve le plus grand nombre d’enseignements consacrés à l’histoire d’une
ville: en l’occurence celle de Lisbonne à l’époque médiévale, moderne et
contemporaine. Cette multiplicité peut s’expliquer par le caractère singulier
que Lisbonne a depuis toujours assumé dans le contexte du réseau urbain
portugais: il s’agit en effet de la ville la plus peuplée, qui a depuis toujours
assuré des fonctions multiples et diversifiées et qui jouit d’une importance
politique incontestable depuis la seconde moitié du XIIIème siècle.
Mais, comme nous l’avons vu, l’histoire urbaine se développe autour

d’une réalité vaste, complexe, multiple et, par conséquent, susceptible
de générer des approches distinctes. Cette richesse et cette diversité
s’expriment dans les contenus des programmes: certains prisent les
aspects topographiques, d’autres privilégient les aspects culturels, tandis
que d’autres mettent l’accent sur la composante sociale, institutionnelle
et, plus rarement, économique. Cette situation est aussi, en quelque sorte,
le résultat d’une tradition universitaire qui confère une grande autonomie
au professeur dans l’élaboration des programmes, qui sont ainsi adaptés
aux intérêts et/ou aux orientations de recherche d’ordre personnel. Il
convient également de rappeler que, contrairement à d’autres systèmes
d’enseignement universitaires européens (voir le cas de l’Espagne), au
Portugal, l’élaboration de manuels d’histoire par les universitaires est
pratiquement inexistante. Cette particularité, allié aux rares traductions
d’ouvrages étrangers – presque toujours limitées à des historiens de grand
renom –, oblige les enseignants et les étudiants à recourir à la
bibliographie en langue étrangère, qui constitue donc l’information de
base pour la préparation des cours par les professeurs et des éxamens
par les étudiants. Il va sans dire que l’étendue des thèmes à traiter dans
le cadre de l’histoire urbaine peut s’en trouver considérablement élargie.
Parfois, des approches de l’histoire urbaine peuvent faire l’objet

d’enseignements plus spécifiques qui traduisent des orientations de
recherche déjà très consolidées ou l’intérêt d’une certaine école pour le
développement d’un thème précis. C’est le cas, par exemple, de l’histoire
des municipalités et du pouvoir municipale enseignée à l’Université de
Porto, qui n’est autre que le corollaire d’un investissement d’une vingtaine
d’années dans l’étude des institutions urbaines. Et c’est aussi le cas de
l’Université de Lisbonne, où une prestigieuse équipe de recherche en
archéologie romaine a pu concevoir et enseigner une matière intitulée
“les cités romaines au Portugal”.
55
Associée aux licences d’Archéologie ou à leurs mentions, l’Archéologie

Urbaine (Université du Minho-Braga) s’occupe normalement des
méthodologies et des problématiques propres à l’intervention
archéologique dans les espaces urbains. Presque toujours proposée en
option aux étudiants d’Histoire, cette matière contribue à l’élargissement
des perspectives d’étude de la ville, en attirant l’attention sur les
potentialités de la prospection archéologique et, surtout, de ses résultats
pour la compréhension des sites urbains ainsi que pour l’étude de leur
quotidien matériel.
L’Histoire Locale et Régionale (en option à l’Université de Coimbra

pour les licences d’Histoire et d’Archéologie et thème de formation post-
licence à l’Université de Lisbonne) est plus récente et comporte presque
toujours dans ses programmes une importante composante d’histoire
urbaine, surtout par l’établissement de méthodologies destinées à
l’élaboration d’études monographiques. Il faut associer l’apparition de
cette discipline aux soutiens et aux aides des institutions régionales et/
ou urbaines à la récupération de la mémoire des espaces locaux et
régionaux, à une époque où d’importants projets d’urbanisme, parfois
désordonnés, font disparaître des espaces traditionnels.
Enfin, il faut aussi rappeler que l’histoire urbaine peut trouver place
dans des programmes d’ordre plus général dans lesquels elle représente
un nombre très variable d’unités d’enseignement. Des thèmes tels que
la polis grecque, la cité romaine, l’essor urbain médiéval, le processus
d’urbanisation post-industriel, l’urbanisation de territoires portugais
d’outre-mer, comme le Brésil aux XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles, ou des
aspects plus spécifiques tels que l’approche des élites locales,
l’administration locale ou les rituels et les festivités urbaines baroques
sont enseignés dans le cadre de matières aux désignations aussi générales
que Histoire de la Civilisation Grecque, Histoire de l’Antiquité Classique,
Histoire du Moyen-Âge, Histoire des Découvertes et de l’Expansion
Portugaise, Histoire du Brésil, Histoire Contemporaine, Histoire
Institutionnelle, Histoire des Mentalités.
La présence de thèmes d’histoire urbaine dans des enseignements

consacrés à l’étude de l’Histoire du Portugal - au moins un pour chaque
époque chronologique, même si elles sont parfois plus nombreuses dans
certaines universités et présentent des contenus plus détaillés - est
beaucoup moins significative que dans le cas des matières d’ordre plus
général. Le poids de l’histoire urbaine y est très inégal et ce sont les
56
Portugal
aspects institutionnels, sociaux et politiques qui sont les plus souvent

abordés. L’autonomie du professeur dans le choix de son programme se
traduit, comme nous l’avons vu, par de grandes différences d’une
université à l’autre, voire d’une année scolaire à l’autre, ce qui rend tout
commentaire très casuistique et potentiellement désactualisé.
L’histoire urbaine semble donc incapable de s’imposer en tant que

matière obligatoire dans les programmes d’étude des formations de
Licence et a même des difficultés à s’identifier. Les contenus sont
normalement informatifs, diachroniques et ne dépassent pas le cadre
géographique européen. Ils sont en outre très simplifiés lorsque la
thématique s’étend sur un champ chronologique très large. Les approches
plus spécialisées tendent à privilégier le Portugal ou, du moins, des aspects
déterminants pour la formation de la composante urbaine du territoire
portugais, comme la cité romaine ou islamique. Le nombre de questions
enseignées est faible, bien qu’il soit un peu plus important à l’Université
Nouvelle de Lisbonne.
Dans les formations post-licence, contrairement à ce qui se produit

pour la licence, la perspective est exclusivement portugaise et les objectifs
de l’enseignement visent davantage à fournir des problématiques et des
méthodologies d’approche des questions urbaines et mettent l’accent
sur l’heuristique et l’herméneutique : textes écrits, cartographie,
iconographie, vestiges matériels, etc… qui permettent l’élaboration
d’études d’histoire urbaine.
Quelques explications à ce dynamisme si fragile

Cette situation de l’enseignement de l’histoire urbaine s’explique par
un ensemble de circonstances associé, d’une part, aux conditions
d’évolution de l’implantation de l’enseignement universitaire de l’Histoire
au Portugal, en particulier au siècle dernier, mais aussi, par ailleurs, à la
diffusion plus précoce et au dynamisme de l’enseignement des réalités
urbaines en Géographie, en Sociologie et, surtout, en Architecture.
Il faut se rappeler que, à l’aube du XXème siècle, il n’y avait au Portugal

qu’une seule licence de Lettres, le Cours Supérieur de Lettres préparé à
Lisbonne, dans lequel l’histoire intégrait des disciplines très générales
au champ chronologique très vaste. Il faut attendre l’avènement du régime
républicain (1910) et la création des Facultés de Lettres de Lisbonne et
de Coimbra (1911) pour que soit mise en place la première licence de
57
Sciences Historiques et Géographiques, dont le programme comprenait,

pour la première fois, des matières plus spécifiques, reprenant les
découpages chronologiques traditionnels de l’histoire européenne:
Histoire de l’Antiquité, Histoire du Moyen Age.5
Le processus d’émancipation de l’enseignement de la Géographie, à partir
du début des années 1930, n’a pas eu de parallèle dans le domaine de
l’Histoire, qui a été associée à la Philosophie avec laquelle elle a partagé,
pendant quelques décennies, la licence en sciences historico-philosophiques.
L’autonomisation de l’enseignement de l’Histoire, par la création d’une
licence spécifique, ne s’est opérée qu’après la réforme de 1957 et peut,
dans une certaine mesure, être associée au processus d’affirmation et de
spécialisation de l’historiographie universitaire qui a commencé à se dessiner
au Portugal après la fin de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale.
Cette institutionnalisation de l’enseignement universitaire de l’Histoire
n’a pas été propice à la création d’autres licences plus spécialisées. Il
faudra attendre la fin du XXème siècle ou le début du XXIème pour que
soient instituées les premières licences d’Histoire de l’Art, puis
d’Archéologie, après leur tentative d’autonomisation par la création de
mentions intégrées dans le cadre de la licence d’Histoire, même si cette
situation perdure encore dans quelques cas (voir FCSH-UNL).6 En fait,
contrairement à d’autres autres pays européens - insertion de l’Histoire
de l’Art dans les disciplines artistiques ou rapprochement avec
l’Archéologie et les Facultés de Sciences - le développement de ces
disciplines est resté très étroitement lié à l’histoire et leur processus de
spécialisation et d’autonomie peut s’expliquer par le dynamisme croissant
de la recherche dans ce domaine, qui peut être associé aux sollicitations
accrues d’une société portugaise de plus en plus sensible aux questions
de la préservation de son patrimoine matériel.
La diminution récente du nombre de candidats aux licences de la
filière Humanités et les difficultés que rencontrent les jeunes qui sortent
des Universités à s’insérer sur le marché du travail, alliées aux importantes
5
Armando Carvalho Homem, ‘Idade Média nas universidades portuguesas (1911-1987). Legislação,
ensino, investigação’, Anais da Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa- série História, 1994, 331-38;
Amélia Aguiar Andrade , ‘Un bilan de l´histoire des villes médiévales portugaises’, Information
Historique, t. 51, nº2, 1989, 90-2.
6
José Manuel Amado Mendes, ‘A História na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra:
investigação e ensino (1911-1926), Universidade(s): história, memória, perspectivas. Actas do
Congresso, História da Universidade, I, (Coimbra 1991), 477-98; João Paulo Avelãs Nunes, A História
Económica e Social na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra. O historicismo neo-
metódico: ascensão e queda de um paradigma historiográfico, 1911-1974, (Lisboa 1995).
58
Portugal
restrictions budgétaires dans le financement de l’enseignement supérieur

portugais, rendent très difficile, voire impossible, la création d’une licence
spécialisée en histoire urbaine dans les années à venir – et même de tout
autre type de licence spécialiséé – d’autant plus qu’il ne serait pas possible
de garantir des débouchés à ces diplômés, un argument de plus en plus
décisif pour la reconnaissance et le soutien financier de la part de l’État.
Pour des raisons que nous verrons ci-après, les historiens de la ville
n’arrivent pas à s’imposer dans la société portugaise en tant
qu’interlocuteurs dans le débat concernant le développement urbain.
Leur activité est presque exclusivement confinée au cadre universitaire,
ce qui a des répercussions sur les débouchés professionnels des éventuels
diplômés en histoire urbaine.
Par ailleurs, il faut souligner que, jusqu’au 25 avril 1974, les

programmes des licences d’Histoire – à celles de Lisbonne et de Coimbra
était venue s’ajouter celle de l’Université de Porto, créée en 1961 – révèlent
une grande ressemblance et, surtout, une grande immuabilité. Elles sont
caractérisées par la prédominance d’enseignements privilégiant les visions
à tendance panoramique : l’accent était mis sur l’histoire nationale et
sur les outils pour l’exercice de la pratique historique : épigraphie,
paléographie, numismatique, entre autres. L’histoire contemporaine était
pratiquement oubliée et l’histoire économique et sociale dévalorisée,
puisque ces dernières matières étaient considérées, certes de manière
implicite, comme potentiellement dangereuses par le régime fascisant
alors en place au Portugal.7
Il y eut toutefois des débuts timides de changement dans les années

60, où l’on observe une certaine ouverture dans les contenus des
programmes des matières enseignées dans les universités portugaises,
sous l’effet de la diminution de l’isolement de l’historiographie portugaise,
qui tendait à présenter jusqu’alors, du moins dans le milieu universitaire,
un penchant documentaliste, narratif et positiviste.8
Les années qui suivirent la Révolution d’avril 1974, après une courte
période d’euphorie caractérisée par des expériences sans grandes
conséquences, furent marquées, jusqu’à très récemment, par une réforme
engagée en 1977 et qui est venue uniformiser les programmes des licences
7
Judite A Gonçalves de Freitas, ‘O ensino universitário da História nas décadas de 50 e de 60: as
reformas curriculares’ in Os reinos ibéricos na Idade Média, III, (Porto 2003), 1433-38.
8
Luís Reis Torgal, ‘Ensino da História’ in História da História em Portugal. Sécs. XIX-XX, (Lisboa,
1996), 431-89.
59
d’Histoire. Produit par l’élite des historiens portugais9 dont la plupart

avaient suivi leurs formations à l’étranger ou y avaient fait de longs séjours,
voir des exilés dans d’autres pays européens ou aux États-Unis pendant
les années de dictature, cette réforme visait à initier les étudiants aux
problématiques, aux méthodologies et aux épistémologies qu’impliquait
la construction de la synthèse historique. À cet effet, tout en continuant
à mettre l’accent sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire du Portugal, il établissait
une vision tripartite des grandes époques historiques, qui passait par
l’Histoire Économique et Sociale, l’Histoire Institutionnelle et Politique
et l’Histoire Culturelle et des Mentalités.10 . Une programme d’études
qui ne laissait toutefois pratiquement aucune place aux disciplines
optionnelles, ni aux disciplines consacrées à des matières plus spécifiques,
telles que l’histoire urbaine. Cette dernière, lorsqu’elle était enseignée,
était plutôt intégrée dans l’Histoire Économique et Sociale ou dans
l’Histoire Institutionnelle et Politique.
La solution imaginée en 1977 a progressivement disparu des

universités portugaises à la suite de modifications successives. Dans la
plupart des établissements, l’Histoire Politique a été valorisée au détriment
de la composante économique et sociale.11 Par ailleurs, on observe une
tendance généralisée visant à permettre aux étudiants d’intégrer des
disciplines optionnelles dans leur programme de licence, ouvrant ainsi
la voie à la création de cours d’histoire urbaine dans les années 1990.
Si une certaine rigidité des programmes et la poursuite d’un modèle

privilégiant une formation plus généraliste peuvent aider à comprendre
l’apparition tardive de l’histoire urbaine dans le paysage universitaire
portugais, elles n’expliquent pas toutefois les difficultés que rencontre
l’histoire urbaine pour s’imposer, aussi bien dans le panorama
historiographique portugais, que dans la confrontation avec les autres
sciences sociales et humaines qui ont la ville pour objet d’étude, une
situation que l’on retrouve également en ce qui concerne l’architecture.
Pays essentiellement rural jusqu’au début des années 1960, le Portugal

a connu depuis cette époque une importante vague de migrations internes
vers les agglomérations urbaines du littoral, ce qui a entraîné un processus
accéléré d’urbanisation. Ce processus a littéralement explosé après la
9
Armando Carvalho Homem, ‘Idade Média nas universidades portuguesas’ , 334
10
José Mattoso, ‘A História que se ensina aos futuros professores de história’, O estudo da História.
Boletim da APH, nº12-13-14-15, 1990-93, (II série), 1º vol., 303-9.
11
José Mattoso, ‘A História que se ensina aos futuros professores de história’, 306.
60
Portugal
Révolution d’avril 1974, à tel point que, à l’heure actuelle, on peut dire que
le pays se trouve à un moment d’affirmation et de prédominance de la ville,
où la majeure partie de la population est concentrée. Autant de circonstances
qui ont éveillé l’intérêt pour la ville et, surtout, pour la compréhension de
ses transformations, à mesure que se faisait sentir le besoin urgent d’encadrer
et d’ordonner les interventions urbanistiques à réaliser.
Or, ce n’était pas l’histoire qui était en mesure, à l’époque, de répondre

à la nécessité sociale d’étudier la réalité urbaine et de révéler le passé
historique des agglomérations urbaines portugaises. En effet, pour la plupart
des historiens portugais, les centres urbains avaient toujours le statut de
minorité qui leur était conféré par leur rôle de théâtre, presque toujours
ignoré, des recherches sur d’autres thématiques. En somme, le résultat d’un
ensemble de facteurs, parmi lesquels un héritage historiographique qui
valorisait presque exclusivement, depuis le XIXème siècle, l’étude de
l’organisation et du fonctionnement des institutions urbaines, un
éloignement, pendant toute la durée de la dictature de l’Estado Novo (1933-
1974), des effets bénéfiques du renouvellement historiographique européen.
Par ailleurs, il faut préciser que l’histoire régionale et locale, qui a

produit dans plusieurs pays européens des études urbaines d’une certaine
qualité et a contribué à la publication systématique et rigoureuse d’une
documentation abondante, était confinée, depuis le XIXème siècle12 aux
érudits locaux - certains bons, d’autres moyens, mais la majorité très
mauvais - lesquels, avec un grand enthousiasme mais une préparation
faible, voire inexistante, s’efforçaient d’élaborer l’histoire de leur ville.
Cette tendance persiste encore aujourd’hui et peut peut-être aider à
comprendre le manque d’intérêt de l’historiographie universitaire pour
l’histoire locale et régionale, souvent considérée comme un type d’histoire
mineure, à éviter par les spécialistes de Clio.
En fait, l’étude de la ville relevait de la compétence des géographes qui

depuis les années 30 du siècle dernier, la considéraient comme un objet
de réflexion et de recherche et produisaient des études de qualité. Dans
ces dernières la perspective historique était également présente, dans la
mesure où l’école géographique portugaise s’est développée sous la tutelle
de la figure emblématique d’Orlando Ribeiro, pour qui le rapport
géographie/histoire était incontestable et indissociable.13 Les recherches
12
António de Oliveira, ‘Da História das pátrias à história local’, A cidade e o campo. Colectânea de
Estudos, (Coimbra, 2000), 11-22.
13
João Carlos Garcua, ‘As cidades na obra de Orlando Ribeiro’, 107-14.
61
des géographes, qui ont porté sur des questions telles que le rôle de la
ville en tant que pôle d’attraction régionale, la détermination des zones
d’influence ou l’importance de la rua direita (High Street, Grand Rue),
ont contribué à l’affirmation de la Géographie Urbaine en tant que discipline
indispensable à la formation de ces professionnels, en leur fournissant les
outils nécessaires pour en faire des techniciens indispensables à la
compréhension de la ville et aux actions d’aménagement urbain.
La plupart des perplexités et des questions étant suscitées par la

transformation qui s’est opérée dans la ville contemporaine du point de
vue de l’humain et du bâti, il n’est pas étonnant que la société portugaise
ait ressenti un besoin d’approches sociologiques et architecturales, qui
ont permis l’affirmation de la sociologie urbaine et, surtout, la
reconnaissance sociale et médiatique des architectes en tant qu’acteurs
privilégiés pour la compréhension de la ville. Cette approche, bien souvent,
ne considère pas la ville en elle-même, mais préfére plutôt réfléchir autour
de la constatation de la régularité et de l’établissement des modèles
théoriques de base, en se préoccupant des constantes d’implantation, du
dessin, de l’emploi des techniques et des matériaux de construction.14
Ces perspectives ont été à l’origine de la diffusion des enseignements
d’Histoire de l’Urbanisme et d’Histoire de l’Architecture dans tous les
programmes des licences d’Architecture et aussi, parfois, d’Histoire de
l’Art. L’histoire de l’urbanisme suscite actuellement une dynamique de
recherche considérable qui contribue grandement à consolider cette
discipline ainsi que son enseignement, c’est le cas à l’université de Coimbra)
Face à l’affirmation de ces perspectives différentes, mais aussi

complexes et riches, sur la ville, l’histoire urbaine, apporte non seulement
un nouvel éclairage sur le présent de la ville en récupérant sa mémoire,
mais permet aussi de préciser les grandes phases de son évolution et de
dévoiler les paramètres caractérisant la société qui organisait et occupait
ces espaces. L’histoire urbaine deviendrait la voie royale qui ménerait à
la compréhension de la ville actuelle, à une prise de conscience de sa
pérennité dont les acteurs joueraient un rôle grandissant pour
conscientiser les sociétés actuelles face à leur devenir urbain. Si elle n’y
parvient pas, c’est peut-être parce que l’historiographie urbaine
portugaise demeure très centrée sur le développement de thématiques
liées à l’histoire des institutions et des pouvoirs locaux.
14
Walter Rossa, A cidade portuguesa’ in História da Arte portuguesa, III, (Lisboa, 1997), 233-328.
62
Portugal
En fait, le dialogue s’avère difficile aujourd’hui, au Portugal, entre ceux

qui cultivent l’histoire urbaine, l’archéologie urbaine et l’histoire de
l’urbanisme, tandis qu’il n’y a pratiquement aucun rapprochement avec la
géographie et la sociologie urbaines. Chez tous, on observe une tendance
à considérer que leur perspective est fondamentale et incontournable pour
la compréhension de la ville. Tous s’emploient à apparaître aux yeux de la
société comme le seul interlocuteur possible pour les questions urbaines,
mais rares sont ceux qui obtiennent une telle reconnaissance. Or, la
connaissance de la ville portugaise, qui comporte encore tellement de
lacunes, aurait beaucoup à gagner à une plus grande ouverture mutuelle
qui permettrait l’enrichissement des problématiques.
Web sites
www.fl.ul.pt Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
www.fcsh.unl.pt Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
da Universidade Nova de Lisboa
www.fl.uc.pt Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de
Coimbra
www.letras.up.pt Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
www.hist.ics.uminho.pt Departamento de Historia, Universidade do
Minho
www.dhis.uevora.pt Universidade de Évora- Departamento de
História
www.dhfcs.uac.pt Universidade dos Açores- Departamento de
História
63
64
Greece
Grèce
Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki et Marianthi Kotea
Panteion University
L’éducation en Grèce est centralisée et contrôlée par l’État. La

Constitution ne permet pas la création d’établissements privés qui
puissent délivrer des diplômes équivalents à ceux des universités
grecques. En d’autres termes, l’enseignement supérieur est dispensé
exclusivement par l’État et le secteur privé n’a pas la possibilité d’offrir
ses services dans ce domaine. Les établissements d’enseignement
supérieur sont auto-administrés, sous la tutelle du ministère de
l’éducation. Une intégration de l’enseignement supérieur a été réalisée
ces dernières années : conformément à la loi de 2001, les universités
grecques, nommées Anotata Ekpedevtika Idrimata (AEI, établissements
d’enseignement supérieur) et les instituts d’enseignement technologique
connus sous le nom d’anotera ekpedevtika idrimata (TEI) ont été
regroupés sous l’appellation d’enseignement de troisième degré
(tritovathmia ekpaideusi). Cette réforme a été mise en œuvre en liaison
avec les objectifs du processus de Bologne1 . La loi du 22.7.2004 a réformé
le système existant par l’instauration d’un programme spécifique de
coopération en troisième cycle (postgraduate studies) avec les autres
pays (inter-state cooperation), qui a pour but, entre autres, d’établir un
système d’évaluation pour garantir la qualité de l’enseignement supérieur.
Actuellement, il existe en Grèce 22 universités publiques.
1
Voir le rapport de l’année 2004-2005 préparé par le ministère de l’éducation nationale, qui offre un
aperçu des réformes engagées en Grèce : National Report, Implementation of the Bologna Process,
Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs, 14-01-2004, et la description dans EURYBASE, la
base de données EURYDICE des systèmes d’éducation européens.
65
La structure des diplômes universitaires est basée sur deux cycles

principaux. Le premier cycle conduit au diplôme de premier degré
(ptychio ou diplôma), qui implique 4 ans d’études pour les étudiants en
sciences humaines et sciences sociales et 5 ans d’études pour les étudiants
de l’École polytechnique (architectes, urbanistes, etc.), et qui offre 240
crédits ECTS. L’année universitaire se divise en deux semestres de 13
semaines d’enseignement et 3 semaines d’examens.
Le second cycle, pour la majorité des programmes organisés

(«programmes d’études post-ptychio», metaptychiaka programmata
spoudon), a une durée d’un an minimum. Les diplômes (metaptychiako
diploma eidikeysis EMD) délivrés par les universités sont de type master.
Il y a 213 programmes de ce type, c’est–à-dire de diplômes de deuxième
degré du second cycle, organisés par les universités.
Les étudiants qui possèdent un diplôme de ce type ont la possibilité

de continuer leurs études dans un troisième degré qui mène à un diplôme
supérieur (didaktoriko), équivalant au doctorat français, d’une durée
qui varie de 3 à 5 ans. La thèse (didactoriki diatrivi) que les candidats
sont tenus de soutenir pour obtenir ce diplôme est dirigée par un jury
de trois professeurs d’universités. Jusqu’à présent, les trois quarts environ
des étudiants grecs finissent leurs études au terme du premier cycle.
Pour le moment, il n’y a pas de cours avancés en Histoire au niveau du
doctorat (mis à part quelques séminaires), et la seule possibilité en ce
domaine offerte aux départements est la participation aux projets intensifs
(IPS) du programme Socrates.
Malheureusement , le Système européen de transfert de crédits (ECTS)

n’a pas encore été introduit dans les universités grecques, sauf dans
quelques départements pour la mobilité des étudiants dans le cadre du
programme Socrates ; Aussi le Supplément au diplôme n’a pas été introduit
et reste en discussion. Le programme opérationnel pour la formation initiale
et la vocation professionnelle EPEAEK qui finance la recherche des
deuxième et troisième cycles est orienté surtout vers des domaines autres
que les sciences sociales ou humaines. Plusieurs programmes de type
master (EMD) en Histoire ont cependant été financés par ce programme.
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Greece
1. L’enseignement de l’Histoire urbaine dans les Départements

d’Histoire:
a) départements d’Histoire et d’Archéologie
Il existe en Grèce deux catégories seulement d’établissements
d’enseignement supérieur (AEI) qui dispensent des cours d’Histoire urbaine
en premier cycle (niveau pré-ptychio) : la première comprend les départements
d’Histoire et d’Archéologie qui relèvent des facultés de Lettres des universités
suivantes : 1. l’université nationale et capodistrienne d’Athènes ; 2. l’université
de Ioannina ; 3. l’université Aristote de Thessalonique ; 4. l’université de Crète.
Dans ces départements, l’enseignement de l’Histoire urbaine tantôt fait partie
d’un cours de contenu plus large couvrant toute une période de l’histoire (le
Moyen Âge, par exemple) et une zone géographique déterminée (l’Europe,
par exemple), tantôt se rapporte à la Méthodologie de l’Histoire et à ses sources,
tantôt constitue un cours autonome consacré aux villes de périodes
chronologiques données (les temps modernes, par exemple) et de régions
géographiques précises (la Grèce, par exemple).
C’est ainsi qu’il existe au département d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de

l’université d’Athènes un cours sur l’Histoire médiévale de l’Occident
qui se spécialise dans la présentation des villes en Europe occidentale
(XIe-XVe s.) en tentant une approche historique de leur vie sociale et
économique. La même logique de spécialisation se retrouve dans le cours
qui a pour objet l’Histoire sociale de la Grèce de l’après-guerre, où sont
traités entre autres des sujets concernant l’urbanisation contemporaine.
Sans oublier : 1. le cours sur l’Histoire de l’hellénisme moderne, dans le
cadre duquel a lieu un séminaire sur l’évolution d’Athènes à partir de la
Guerre d’Indépendance (1821) jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle ; 2. le cours
sur l’Histoire de l’hellénisme moderne I, où sont étudiés les «marginaux»
dans l’espace urbain des régions grecques sous domination vénitienne
(XIIIe-XVIIIe s.) ainsi que les mécanismes de leur réinsertion.
Mais l’enseignement de l’Histoire urbaine a aussi lieu dans d’autres

universités sous la forme de cours autonomes, de contenu plus ou moins
général ou spécialisé. Sont caractéristiques de ce point de vue les deux
cours sur les villes byzantines (Géographique historique de Byzance ; La
ville byzantine) qui sont dispensés au département d’Histoire et
d’Archéologie de l’université de Ioannina, section d’Histoire ancienne et
médiévale. Dans le même secteur sont dispensés dans des enseignements
non autonomes d’Histoire urbaine des cours concernant l’Administration
des régions byzantines, les Relations avec les Arabes et d’autres peuples,
67
l’Éducation, et plus généralement des sujets de méthodologie et de

périodisation de l’histoire byzantine. Le secteur d’Histoire moderne de la
même université traite, dans le cadre d’un cours d’Histoire économique
et sociale, des thèmes se rapportant aux communes, à l’organisation du
commerce et aux activités religieuses, politiques et économiques des guildes
(corporations) sous la domination ottomane.
Des cours portant sur les villes byzantines (Les villes byzantines, Xe-XVe s.)
existent aussi au département correspondant de l’université de Crète. Ce
dernier département offre aussi des cours autonomes sur les villes de la
période ottomane et des temps modernes (La ville à la période ottomane, La
ville aux temps modernes). Il existe aussi des cours autonomes plus spécialisés
sur la ville, couvrant un large éventail chronologique qui va de l’Antiquité à
nos jours, avec référence à des problématiques et des approches variées
telles «La topographie de l’Athènes ancienne», «Les villes et les campagnes à
l’âge du bronze en mer Égée», «Bourgeois tranquilles et troubles estudiantins :
ville et université dans l’Europe médiévale» (université de Crète), «Femmes,
pauvres et mendiants : la marginalité dans l’espace urbain médiéval»
(université d’Athènes), ou encore «Les villes grecques aux XIXe et XXe siècles.
Problèmes de recherche et d’historiographie» (université de Crète).
Au département d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de l’université d’Athènes,

un département de deuxième cycle inclut aussi des enseignements sur
l’Histoire de l’Antiquité grecque et romaine, l’Histoire byzantine, l’Histoire
grecque moderne et contemporaine ainsi que l’Histoire européenne ; il
délivre un diplôme de deuxième cycle (post-ptychio, EMD). Les séminaires
d’histoire urbaine dispensés sont au nombre de deux : l’un concerne les
communes urbaines grecques et les installations rurales en Méditerranée
occidentale du XVe au XVIIIe siècle (Venise, Malte, Italie du Sud, Toscane,
Corse) ; l’autre examine les réseaux techniques de la capitale grecque et
s’intitule «Histoire d’Athènes. Le problème des infrastructures d’une ville
méditerranéenne moderne».
À Thessalonique, il existe au département d’Histoire et d’Archéologie un

programme de deuxième cycle sur toutes les périodes de l’Histoire :
ancienne, byzantine et médiévale, grecque et européenne moderne et
contemporaine, histoire des pays de la péninsule de l’Aimos et la Turcologie,
et archéologie; il délivre un diplôme de deuxième cycle (post-ptychio, EMD)2 .
2
Nous n’avons malheureusement pas eu accès au guide des études, de sorte à pouvoir prendre en
compte les cours qui sont intégrés de par leur thématique à l’Histoire urbaine.
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Greece
Le département d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de la faculté de Lettres

de l’université de Crète abrite entre autres deux programmes
plurisciplinaires de deuxième cycle (EMD) qui débouchent sur un
diplôme de type master : l’un en Histoire grecque et européenne
contemporaine, l’autre en Études byzantines. Pour les doctorants qui
travaillent en histoire contemporaine sont organisés au département,
une fois par mois, des séminaires obligatoires, et un atelier, la dernière
semaine de juillet. Certains de ces séminaires entrent dans la thématique
de l’histoire urbaine, comme, par exemple, celui intitulé «Athènes :
l’évolution d’une capitale méditerranéenne (XIXe-XXe s.)» dans l’atelier
duquel sont développés des sujets de théorie et de méthodologie de
l’Histoire et des sciences sociales. Le programme de deuxième cycle
d’Études byzantines repose sur une approche pluridisciplinaire, tant par
la coopération des trois branches byzantinistes qu’avec les autres sciences
sociales. Il n’y a pas de cours exclusivement consacré à la ville byzantine
ou européenne, mais il y en a qui entrent dans ce domaine comme celui
intitulé «Monastères, cours et foires dans l’Europe médiévale».
À l’Université de Ioannina a été créé un Programme de deuxième

cycle interdépartemental d’études médiévales, dans le but principal de
revaloriser et de systématiser les études de deuxième cycle en Grèce
dans le secteur des études byzantines et médiévales qui, jusqu’à la fin
des années quatre-vingt-dix, n’avaient pas connu de réel développement.
Le programme débouche sur un diplôme de deuxième cycle de type
master en études médiévales (EMD) (Postgraduate Program of Mediaeval
Studies, IPPMS). Les cours sont soit obligatoires soit optionnels. L’unité
thématique des cours obligatoires qui se rapportent à l’Histoire byzantine
ne contient pas de cours autonomes concernant exclusivement la ville
byzantine, en dehors d’enseignements fragmentaires au sein de cours
de contenu général (Géographie historique de l’empire, L’enseignement,
Le livre, etc.). La même chose vaut pour les unités d’Histoire balkanique
et d’Histoire de l’Europe médiévale. Enfin, dans l’unité de Littérature
grecque médiévale sont dispensés deux cours qui intéressent
probablement les historiens de la ville : l’un concerne certaines sujets
culturels à Byzance, et l’autre les chroniqueurs et historiens de Byzance.
Les cours optionnels ne proposent pas non plus d’enseignement
concernant exclusivement la ville byzantine.
69
b) départements d’Histoire et d’autres sciences sociales

En Grèce, les facultés de Lettres ne sont pas les seules à posséder des
départements d’Histoire : il faut aussi compter avec les universités qui
ont été ouvertes dans les années quatre-vingts et quatre-vingt-dix et avec
certaines écoles supérieures devenues pendant cette même période des
universités, dotées de différents départements. Le trait caractéristique
de ces départements d’Histoire est qu’ils combinent l’Histoire avec
d’autres sciences, en dehors de l’Archéologie. Ces départements sont les
suivants : 1. Le département d’Histoire de l’université Ionienne ; 2. Le
département d’Histoire et d’Ethnologie de l’université Démocrite de
Thrace ; 3. Le département d’Histoire, d’Archéologie et d’Anthropologie
sociale de la faculté des Sciences de l’homme de l’université de Thessalie ;
4. Le département d’Anthropologie sociale et d’Histoire de la faculté des
Sciences sociales de l’université de la mer Égée ; 5. Le département
d’Histoire, d’Archéologie et de Gestion des biens culturels de la faculté
des Sciences humaines et des Études culturelles de l’université du
Péloponnèse ; 6. Le département de Science politique et d’Histoire de
l’université Panteion de Sciences sociales et politiques d’Athènes et 7. La
faculté des Lettres et d’Histoire des sciences (faculté indépendante) de
l’université d’ Athènes.
Les programmes d’études de premier cycle de ces nouveaux

départements d’Histoire englobent des cours généraux d’Histoire avec
des références aux villes et des cours autonomes sur l’Histoire des villes,
de contenu tantôt général, tantôt spécialisé. Mais dans les programmes
des nouveaux départements, les cours autonomes sur l’Histoire des villes
l’emportent, contrairement à ce qui se passe dans le programme des
anciens départements. Sur le plan quantitatif, le nombre de cours qui
traitent de la période médiévale d’un côté, des temps modernes et de la
période contemporaine de l’autre, est à peu près le même. La référence
à l’Antiquité grecque n’est naturellement pas absente, mais cette période
est représentée par un moins grand nombre de cours. Du point de vue
géographique, les cours s’occupent : a) de la Grèce quand ils se réfèrent
à l’Antiquité ; b) de l’Europe occidentale et de Byzance quand ils couvrent
l’époque médiévale ; c) de la Grèce, de l’Europe occidentale et centrale
mais aussi de l’Amérique du Nord (USA) quand ils étudient les villes de
la période moderne et contemporaine. Par ailleurs, la thématique des
cours d’Histoire urbaine dans les nouveaux départements d’Histoire est
plus variée, et on assiste à une tentative de comparaison entre les villes
grecques et les villes européennes.
70
Greece
Citons à titre d’exemples les deux cours autonomes d’Histoire urbaine

qui sont dispensés au département d’Anthropologie et d’Histoire sociales
de l’université de la mer Égée (The Urbanisation in Greece, 19th -20th
centuries, The Urbanisation in Europe and United States, 19th century-
early 20th century) : le premier entreprend d’étudier le caractère de
l’urbanisation grecque à partir de la naissance de l’État grec jusqu’à la
période contemporaine. Cette recherche est réalisée, quand la chose est
possible, dans le cadre d’une comparaison avec des villes méditerranéennes,
d’Europe occidentale et d’Amérique du Nord. Le second cours examine le
phénomène urbain en Europe et aux États-Unis au cours du XIXe siècle et
jusqu’au début du XXe.
Le département d’Histoire de l’université Ionienne contient un cours

semestriel assez général, intitulé «Histoire des villes», qui examine la naissance
et l’évolution diachronique du phénomène urbain en termes de société,
d’économie, de philosophie et de structure urbaine; il met l’accent sur les
particularités et les principales caractéristiques des villes des différentes
cultures de la Méditerranée depuis l’Antiquité grecque jusqu’à nos jours.
Il existe à Corfou, au département d’Histoire de l’université Ionienne,

quatre programmes de deuxième cycle délivrant les diplômes de
spécialisation de deuxième cycle correspondants (EMD). Parmi eux figure
le programme qui se réfère à l’Histoire de la ville et de la construction à
partir du XVIe siècle. Dans le cadre de ce programme de deuxième cycle
de l’université Ionienne est dispensé un cours intitulé «Histoire des villes,
XVe- XIXe siècles». Il vaut la peine de noter que ce cours de deuxième
cycle inclut un enseignement de Méthodologie de l’Histoire.
Enfin, à la faculté des Lettres et d’Histoire des sciences de l’université

d’Athènes est dispensé le cours intitulé «Questions spéciales de
Philosophie de la science et de la technologie», dont une partie est
consacrée aux réseaux urbains techniques.
2. L’enseignement de l’Histoire urbaine dans les autres

départements de sciences sociales
L’Histoire des villes est enseignée non seulement dans les
départements d’Histoire mais aussi dans les départements d’autres
sciences sociales. De ce cas relèvent les départements universitaires
suivants : 1. Le département de Développement économique et régional
de l’université Panteion d’Athènes ; 2. Le département de Sociologie de
71
l’université Panteion d’Athènes ; 3. Le département de Sociologie de la

faculté de Sciences sociales de l’université de la mer Égée ; 4. Le
département de Géographie de la faculté de Sciences sociales de
l’université de la mer Égée ; 5. Le département de Sciences économiques
de l’université nationale et capodistrienne d’Athènes ; 6. Le département
de Sociologie de la faculté de Sciences sociales de l’université de Crète ;
7. Le département de Géographie de l’université Harokopeion ; 8. La
faculté des Études humanistes de l’université de télé-enseignement.
Ces départements offrent une assez large gamme de cours portant

sur la ville. Cette variété est due au fait que chaque département a adopté
une approche spécifique du phénomène urbain en fonction de sa
physionomie et des intérêts du personnel enseignant.
C’est ainsi que le département de Développement économique et

régional de l’université Panteion propose trois cours qui entrent dans le
champ de l’Histoire urbaine et qui sont dispensés depuis le début des
années quatre-vingt-dix (Géographie urbaine ; Histoire urbaine ; Histoire
et politique environnementales). Le cours d’Histoire urbaine traite de
questions d’Historiographie et d’Histoire urbaine européenne ainsi que
d’Histoire de la ville grecque aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Pour sa part, la
Géographie urbaine se rapporte à la naissance et à l’évolution du
phénomène urbain depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’à nos jours, en insistant sur
la Grèce.
Au département de Sociologie de l’université Panteion sont également

dispensés trois cours : deux sur les villes grecques de la période moderne
(Histoire locale économique : La construction des villes helléniques ;
Ville et industrialisation) et un sur les villes européennes et américaines
de la même période (La ville à l’époque moderne : Aspects européens et
américains). Les cours traitant des villes grecques présentent le processus
d’urbanisation, ses causes et ses conséquences sur la constitution de
l’espace urbain mais aussi du réseau urbain à travers une référence
particulière à l’histoire des villes qui ont joué une rôle déterminant dans
la modernisation de l’économie grecque au cours du XIXe siècle. Quant
au cours qui traite des villes européennes et nord-américaines, il présente
d’une part les théories sociales contemporaines sur le phénomène urbain,
et de l’autre, les retombées morphologiques et sociales de leur
développement rapide. Dans les trois cours, sont entreprises des
comparaisons entre les villes grecques et les villes européennes.
72
Greece
Le département de Géographie de l’université de la mer Égée propose

deux cours (Géographie urbaine ; Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme)
où sont analysés les concepts et termes scientifiques (mobilité, migration,
urbanisation, relation ville arrière-pays, marché du travail – répartition
de l’emploi dans l’espace, etc.) et où ont lieu une présentation et un
examen critiques de théories et d’approches fondamentales ; on y
présente aussi le processus évolutif du phénomène urbain et de la pensée
urbanistique. Un accent particulier est mis sur la formation des
établissements primitifs de Mésopotamie, sur le phénomène de la cité
grecque, sur la structure de la ville médiévale dans le monde européen
et arabe, sur le modèle de la ville de la Renaissance et sur la mise en
forme de la ville industrielle primitive.
Un seul cours (Sociologie des espaces urbains) est dispensé au

département de Sociologie de l’université de la mer Égée. Il concerne les
théories sociales de l’espace urbain et se spécialise sur des sujets relatifs
au processus d’urbanisation de l’espace helladique depuis la période de
la conquête ottomane jusqu’à la décennie des années cinquante du XXe
siècle, et au rôle de la ville dans la socialisation de l’individu.
Un seul cours (Histoire des villes) également est dispensé au

département des Sciences économiques de l’université d’Athènes. Il traite
de la ville grecque, européenne et américaine (USA) au XIXe siècle, à
travers des sujets qui concernent l’industrialisation, la production de
l’espace urbain, les conditions de vie, les courants de migration et la
stratification des villes.
Il existe au département de Géographie de l’université Harokopeion

quatre cours relatifs à l’Histoire urbaine (Géographie historique et Histoire
économique des temps modernes I et II, Géographie sociale et urbaine I
et II). Le contenu de ces cours couvre des sujets théoriques (analyse de
notions, de termes scientifiques, de diverses méthodes d’appréhension
du phénomène urbain) mais aussi des matières qui touchent au processus
d’urbanisation dans l’espace helladique du XVIIIe siècle à l’entre-deux-
guerres (forme et organisation de la ville, logement, industrie, commerce,
infrastructure en matière de transports, discrimination et exclusion dans
la ville, etc.).
73
2. L’enseignement de l’Histoire urbaine dans les écoles polytechniques

Les études à la faculté d’Architecture de l’École polytechnique
nationale Metsovio d’Athènes s’orientent derniérement vers des domaines
de contenu plus humaniste, et non plus purement technique. Cette
tendance s’est manifestée dès 1992 dans le programme du premier cycle
d’études, où l’accent a été mis, dans certains cours, sur les sciences
sociales et sur l’influence réciproque de l’espace et du facteur humain.
Les jeunes enseignants issus du domaine des sciences sociales ont apporté
une approche plus anthropocentrique dans les études en architecture.
Parallèlement à cette réorientation, on a aussi assisté à un renouvellement
du contenu de certains enseignements et à l’introduction de cours
nouveaux. Mais l’enquête que nous avons menée n’a pas fait apparaître
de cours d’Histoire urbaine en premier ou en deuxième cycle bien que
dans le secteur de l’urbanisme et de l’aménagement du territoire, l’histoire
de la ville représente un domaine de connaissance fondamental.
Le programme d’études contient neuf semestres auxquels

correspondent seize unités de «Formation générale, Histoire et théorie»
et un nombre équivalent de cours. Parmi eux sont cités huit cours
d’Histoire et de théorie qui correspondent à des semestres d’études, à
raison de 3 à 4 heures par semaine. Il existe dans les huit enseignements
obligatoires, dont le contenu couvre une période chronologique précise,
des parties consacrées à l’Histoire de la ville et plus particulièrement à sa
constitution depuis les établissements préhistoriques jusqu’à la ville
contemporaine. De même que le cours d’Histoire et théorie 8, qui relie
l’urbanisme aux conditions sociales et à l’histoire du lieu en Europe et
en Grèce. Mais l’accent est mis sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire de la
ville grecque à partir du XIXe siècle jusqu’à nos jours (4 heures par
semaine), contrairement à la ville sous Byzance et sous la domination
ottomane, qui fait l’objet d’un enseignement de 6 heures par semestre
seulement. L’Histoire de la ville est aussi enseignée par le biais du cours
Urbanisme I, qui appréhende la constitution de la ville sur la base de
facteurs économiques, sociaux et historiques.
L’Histoire urbaine n’est enseignée à titre de cours «autonome» dans

aucune des orientations du programme interdépartemental d’études de
deuxième cycle d’Architecture / Conception de l’espace : elle ne figure
que dans le cadre de certains autres cours. Bien qu’il soit malaisé de
repérer les cours qui se rapportent à des sujets d’Histoire urbaine du fait
de l’absence de programmes détaillés sur Internet, citons à titre indicatif
74
Greece
le cours «Paysage et espace habité», qui concerne l’Histoire de

l’environnement bâti et la recherche du sens architectural dans les
modifications du rapport entre environnement naturel et environnement
bâti par l’homme ; ou le cours portant sur les «Changements des
conceptions sur la ville au XXe siècle», où sont étudiés les idées et le
travail théorique sur la ville et leurs liens avec les conceptions des sciences
sociales, au XXe siècle principalement, etc.
L’Histoire de la ville constitue, avec l’Histoire de l’urbanisme, un
domaine de connaissance fondamental dans le secteur de l’urbanisme,
de l’aménagement du territoire et du développement régional du
département d’Architecture (et plus spécialement dans le programme
de laboratoire de conception urbanistique et en matière d’aménagement
du territoire) de l’université Aristote de Thessalonique. L’importance
qu’accorde ce département à l’étude de l’Histoire de la ville apparaît
dans le fait qu’il a créé une équipe de recherche spéciale, l’atelier
d’Urbanisme et d’Histoire de la ville.
Il existe dans le programme de premier cycle une unité spécifique de
cours qui se rapportent à l’Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme. Le cours
d’Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme IV est qualifié de cours de base et
est inclus dans le programme général (qui encadre les programmes
spéciaux de laboratoire), étant donné qu’il familiarise les étudiants avec
la problématique de la recherche historico-géographique sur la ville et
sa région. La même unité propose aussi le cours d’Histoire de la ville et
de l’urbanisme I : l’espace de la ville y est examiné comme espace de
l’histoire, et ses changements continuels au fil du temps expriment de la
manière la plus concrète et la plus tangible l’évolution des sociétés
humaines. Selon l’enseignante qui dispense ce cours, le suivi des
modalités de la formation des villes peut devenir une expérience
passionnante si l’on décide de mettre à contribution toutes ses
connaissances : de l’histoire de l’art et de l’architecture jusqu’à l’histoire
des hommes et de la civilisation, des voyages et de leurs récits jusqu’à la
littérature, au théâtre et au cinéma. Sont présentées plus particulièrement
dans ce cours, de manière comparative, les évolutions dans l’espace des
villes d’Europe et de Grèce aux temps modernes (du Moyen Âge au XXe
siècle). Un troisième cours d’Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme (II)
présente l’évolution de la ville européenne du Moyen Âge tardif jusqu’à
la première décennie de l’après-guerre. Le même cours enseigne aussi
l’évolution de la ville grecque, depuis la Libération principalement, et
fait une brève initiation à son évolution au cours des deux siècles
75
précédents. Le quatrième cours d’Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme

(III), intitulé «L’Europe et la Grèce, Xe-XXe s.» examine l’évolution
comparée de la ville et de l’urbanisme du Moyen Âge tardif jusqu’au XXe
siècle. Mais certains cours d’Histoire de l’urbanisme couvrent aussi des
sujets d’Histoire urbaine, comme celui qui s’intitule «Évolution et
urbanisme des établissements grecs, XVe-XXes.»
Bien que ne contenant pas de spécialisation en Histoire urbaine,

le programme interdépartemental de deuxième cycle du département
d’Architecture de l’université de Thessalonique propose, dans le cadre
de certains cours, un enseignement d’Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme.
À l’université de Crète, qui fonctionne depuis 1984, le programme

d’études se concentre sur le développement de la recherche et son lien
avec les unités de production du pays. Il n’est donc pas surprenant que
le département des Ingénieurs Architectes ne contienne pas de cours
d’Histoire urbaine mais uniquement des cours d’Histoire de l’architecture.
Ce n’est que dans le cadre du cours semestriel de 3 heures de «Théorie
de la ville et de l’urbanisme» qu’il y a une tentative d’interprétation de la
ville par rapport à la société, l’économie et la culture.
À l’École polytechnique, au département des Ingénieurs de

l’aménagement du territoire, de l’urbanisme et du développement
régional de l’université de Thessalie, les études se caractérisent par leur
approche pluridisciplinaire. Cela se reflète dans les domaines de
connaissance traités. Parmi les sept unités de base entre lesquelles sont
répartis les enseignements de ce département, il en est une qui se rapporte
aux sciences sociales de l’espace mais aussi à la ville et à l’urbanisme.
C’est dans cette logique qu’a également été ouvert un cours spécial
intitulé «Histoire de la ville et de l’urbanisme». Selon le programme
d’études, le but de ce cours est d’apporter des connaissances historiques
sur l’évolution de la ville et de l’urbanisme, devant ensuite servir de base
aux cours d’urbanisme des semestres suivants. Dans ce cours général,
l’étude du processus d’urbanisation part de l’ère préhistorique et va
jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle. Ce cours présente également les principaux
éléments qui concernent la structure socio-économique de la formation
urbaine et tente d’interpréter la morphologie de l’espace urbain en termes
d’histoire et de culture. L’étude du phénomène urbain a également lieu
dans le cours de Géographie urbaine, qui vise à présenter les structures
sociales de base dans les villes contemporaines et les mécanismes de
leur constitution et de leur évolution.
76
Greece
Enfin, dans le département des Ingénieurs Architectes de l’université

Démocrite de Thrace, ouvert assez récemment, certains aspects de
l’histoire des villes sont enseignés dans le cours d’Urbanisme de premier
cycle et dans le cadre des cours de formation urbanistique.
Conclusions
Nous avons envoyé un questionnaire sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire
urbaine à 40 enseignants, mais nous n’avons reçu que 10 réponses. La
consultation des sites Internet nous a permis de compléter notre
information sans nous fournir toutefois tous les renseignements désirés
car certains présentaient de sérieuses lacunes et d’autres nécessitaient
une importante mise à jour. Malgré ces difficultés, nous avons réussi à
établir un rapide bilan sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire urbaine en Grèce
à tous les niveaux.
Les réponses reçues et l’enquête menée sur Internet permettent de

constater que:
1. Rares sont les départements universitaires qui proposent un cours

intitulé «Histoire urbaine». Notons qu’en grec, le mot «urbain» est
un synonyme de «bourgeois» et que pour cette raison, les
spécialistes de l’Histoire sociale évitent de l’employer. Même dans
les autres universités, la tendance dominante, dans les
départements du premier cycle, est de proposer des cours généraux
qui se spécialisent sur des sujets d’Histoire urbaine. Les universités
qui relient directement leur formation au marché du travail évitent
souvent d’employer le terme «histoire» dans les titres de cours
ayant un contenu historique.
2. L’histoire urbaine, telle qu’on la définit aujourd’hui, a été enseignée

pour la première fois dans les universités grecques à partir de la
fin des années quatre-vingts. La tenue du premier congrès
d’Histoire urbaine a eu une influence décisive sur les historiens
grecs. Auparavant dominait l’enseignement de l’histoire de
l’urbanisme dans les Écoles polytechniques.
3. Les responsables des enseignements adaptent leur enseignement

à la physionomie de leur département mais aussi à leurs propres
intérêts scientifiques.
77
4. À quelques exceptions près, les cours se rapportent d’ordinaire

aux villes d’une période déterminée, hormis les cas de cours
généraux dans les premières années d’études, où l’approche est
diachronique, de l’Antiquité à nos jours.
5. Aucun département ne délivre de diplôme de deuxième cycle en

histoire urbaine exclusivement.
6. La spécialisation en master dans les facultés d’Histoire a

généralement lieu par périodes historiques assez larges.
7. Dans les premiers cycles mais surtout dans les masters, sont aussi
dispensés des cours de méthodologie et d’étude des sources
historiques.
8. L’enseignement d’histoire urbaine s’adresse aussi aux étudiants

de départements non historiques, dans lesquels, au-delà de l’intérêt
pour l’étude du phénomène urbain à l’époque actuelle, est souvent
adoptée une perspective rétrospective sur le passé des villes.
9. L’histoire urbaine occupe une place importante dans les facultés

anciennes d’Architecture, qui tentent d’apporter une optique
nouvelle dans la profession d’ingénieur architecte.
10.Le programme EPEAEK a amplement contribué à la mise au point

des programmes de premier cycle, mais aussi à la création de
programmes interdépartementaux de deuxième cycle depuis la
fin des années quatre-vingt-dix.
78
Italy
Italy
Paola Lanaro and Giovanni Favero
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
This paper presents the results of a nationwide survey into the wide
variety of Urban History courses offered at Italian universities in the
academic year 2003-2004. This research was carried out by means of a
questionnaire augmented by an exhaustive web search. Members of the
Italian Urban History Association (AISU) were circulated with a
questionnaire form, as were teachers in different disciplines (see Appendix
for details). This form contained questions about lecturers’ duties and
academic status; about the level of each course; the number of students
taking it, and the course’s duration and contents, with particular attention
to the chronological scope and to textbooks in use. The principal aim of
the inquiry was to map Urban History teaching in Italy and to point out
peculiarities or problems. We collected 22 relevant answers from a
population of about 70 active urban history courses identified using a
web search. Though modest, we can consider the sample of answers
representative for most important variables, except for the distribution
pattern of courses amongst different universities and faculties.
Despite the limits of the questionnaire sample, the internet overview

allows us to map out the overall distribution pattern of urban history
courses, and identify certain important research poles, which played a
leading role in the development of the discipline. Rome and Turin with 8
courses, Naples and Venice with 6, Milan and Catania with 5 and Bologna
with 4 were the most active (see Table 8.1). Most of these cities are the
home of Polytechnics (Turin and Milan) or Faculties of Architecture and
Schools of Archaeology (Catania and Bologna).
79
Urban history courses are mainly offered by Faculties of Architecture

(58%) and Faculties of Letters or Humanities (37%); only a few are taught
in Faculties of Economics (3%), Law (1%) and Engineering (1%), as shown
in Table 8.2. Courses in ‘The History of the City’ (49%) tend to concentrate
on architecture and urban structure, whilst those entitled ‘Social Urban
History’ (4%), focus more explicitly on social or economic topics. Courses
in the ‘History of Urban Studies’ (35%) are also widespread inside Faculties
of Architecture, sometimes with theoretical or other special features,
whilst in Faculties of Letters it is possible to find geography courses with
cover landscape and settlement in their syllabus (11%).
Table 8.1
Location and title of courses
Location Course title Web search Questionnaire

History Landscape Social History of Total Forms
of the and Urban Urban courses collected
City Settlements History Studies
Rome 4 1 1 2 8 3
Turin 3 1 4 8 2
Naples 2 1 3 6
Venice 1 2 1 2 6 6
Catania 4 1 5 1
Milan 4 1 5
Bologna 2 2 4 1
Ascoli 1 2 3
Florence 2 1 3
Genoa 1 1 1 3 2
Ferrara 2 2
Lecce 1 1 2 1
Palermo 1 1 2
Perugia 1 1 2
Pisa 1 1 2 2
Reggio C. 1 1 2 2
Udine 1 1 2
Viterbo 1 1 2
Bari 1 1
Chieti 1 1
Siena 1 1
Trieste 1 1 1
Total 35 8 3 25 71 22
% 49% 11% 4% 35% 100% 31%
80
Italy
Table 8.2
Faculties and titles of courses (from web search)
Faculty Course title Web search Questionnaire

History Landscape Social History of Total % Collected %
of the and Urban Urban courses forms
City Settlements History Studies
Architecture 21 1 1 18 41 58 13 59
Humanities 14 6 6 26 37 6 27
Economics 1 1 2 3 2 9
Law 1 1 1 1 5
Engineering 1 1 1 - -
Total 35 8 3 25 71 22
Web search % 49 11 4 35
Form collection % 50 9 14 27
As noted previously, the sample of answers collected completely

distorts the geographical distribution of courses, over-representing some
localities. This bias is due to the nature of the AISU network that was
mobilized for the distribution of the questionnaire: this does not include
all teachers offering Urban History courses. Those teachers attaching
greater importance to the field of urban history were thus auto-selected.
Despite this, the sample reflects accurately the distribution of courses
among faculties, although it over-represents some minor ones, such as
Economics and Law. The opposite thing happens with course titles:
History of Urban Studies and Landscape Studies are under-represented,
whilst Urban History is over-represented (see Table 2).
Turning to the academic position of university teachers, the answers

collected show the prevalence of Full Professors and Assistant Professors
(35% each), with fewer Associate Professors and temporary teachers (15%
each), as shown in Table 8.3.
81
Table 8.3
Faculties and the academic status of teachers (from form collection)
Faculty Academic position Questionnaire

Full Prof. Associate Prof. Assistant Prof. Temporary Prof. Total courses
Architecture 6 1 4 2 13
Humanities - 1 4 1 6
Economics 2 - - - 2
Law - 1 - - 1
Engineering - - - - -
Total 8 3 8 3 22
Percentage 36 14 36 14
Most courses offered are at first degree level (64%, mostly run by
Assistant Professors) or at second degree level (23%, all run by Full
Professors). Urban history courses only formed part of higher degree
programmes in a few cases such as the MA at Pisa and PhD programmes
in Rome, Turin, Perugia and Venice (Table 8.4). Courses have an average
duration of 50 hours (10 credits), and the average number of enrolled
students is 45, though it is likely that these high numbers reflect the bias
in the sample in favour of teachers attaching importance to urban history.
Table 8.4
Academic status of teachers and course level (from form collection)
Course level Academic position Questionnaire

Full Associate Assistant Temporary Total %
Prof. Prof. Prof. Prof. courses
First level 2 2 7 3 14 64
Second level 5 - - - 5 23
Masters - - 1 - 1 4
PhD 1 1 - - 2 9
Total 8 3 8 3 22
The chronological scope of course contents differs widely: Modern and

Early Modern periods are covered in more than half of the courses, but figures
fall to under 50% for the Middle Ages and under 30% for Ancient Times
(Table 8.5). Even if courses dealing with ancient history were the least common
under our classification, they are probably more common in Italy than
elsewhere in Europe with the possible exception of Greece where the classical
heritage of the country is also very pronounced. It is not by chance, therefore
that most of the courses focusing on classical antiquities are offered by
universities in the south of Italy, where most of archaeological sites are located.
82
Italy
Table 8.5
Chronological scope of course contents (from form collection)
Time span of contents Questionnaire

Ancient Middle Early Modern Total courses
Times Ages Modern Times
No. courses covering each period 6 9 13 13 22
Percentage 27 41 59 59
The list of preferred textbooks shown in Table 8.6 give only a selected
picture of the great variety of readings used in teaching urban history in
Italy. Nevertheless, the data presented here is instructive: for instance,
our survey of university teachers shows Zucconi’s book is in use in six of
the thirteen courses covering modern times.
Table 8.6
Textbooks chosen for more than one course
No.Textbooks
Courses
6 G. Zucconi, La città contesa (Milano 1989).
3 E. Concina, La città bizantina (Bari 2003).
3 C. De Seta (ed), Le città capitali (Bari 1985).
3 H.W. Kruft, Le città utopiche (Bari 1990).
2 D. Calabi, La città del primo Rinascimento (Bari 2001).
2 D. Calabi, Storia dell’urbanistica europea (Milano 2004).
2 D. Calabi, Storia della città: l’età moderna (Venezia 2001).
2 ‘Città’ in Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale (Roma 1994).
2 L. Gambi, ‘Da città ad area metropolitana’, in Storia d’Italia, 5, 1 (Torino 1973).
2 E. Greco, M. Torelli, Storia dell’urbanistica: il mondo greco (Bari 1989).
2 A. Grohmann, La città medievale (Bari 2003).
2 P. Gros, M. Torelli, Storia dell’urbanistica: il mondo romano (Bari 1992).
2 E. Guidoni, A. Marino, Storia dell’urbanistica: il Cinquecento (Bari 1982).
2 A. Mioni, Le trasformazioni territoriali in Italia (Venezia 1986).
2 P. Morachiello, La città greca (Bari 2003).
2 D. Olsen, La città come opera d’arte (Milano 1987).
2 H. Pirenne, La città del Medioevo (Bari 1995).
2 B. Zevi, Saper vedere l’urbanistica (Torino 1971).
22 83 textbooks
Sources: Questionnaire to Departments.
Information was also collected about the way other university courses
cover urban history topics, but these data were not sufficiently
representative or standardised to display in a table. Nevertheless, the
questionnaire evidence does show that History of Architecture courses for
architects or engineers often cover urban history subjects, as do general
history courses in other faculties, such as Letters, Economics and Sociology.
83
This fact, together with the analysis of course titles, clearly suggests
that the teaching of Urban History in Italian universities has a common
object, the city, but a range of different approaches, conditioned by the
disciplinary priorities of the architecture, economics, literature or law
faculty syllabus. From this point of view, the development of associations
such as AISU and meetings, like the one to be held in Venice in Autumn
2005, offer an opportunity for discussion and contemplation on the nature
of a field of study, urban history, which still has some slippery intellectual
slopes to climb. In fact, sensitivity to urban history subjects and confusion
in the face of multiple approaches to them are the most notable feature
of the opinions expressed by respondents to the questionnaire.
84
Italy
Appendix
Associazione Italiana di Storia Urbana
Questionario sulla didattica della Storia Urbana nelle Università italiane
Docente _______________________________________________________________
Nome COGNOME Qualifica
Sede _______________________________________________________________________
Ateneo Dipartimento
Denominazione del corso _____________________________________________________
Eventuali corsi monografici di Storia della città all’interno di corsi generali con altra
denominazione: ______________________________________________________________
Livello _____________________________________________________________________
Laurea triennale / Laurea specialistica / Master / SSIS / Dottorato Anno di corso
Facoltà _____________________________________________________________________
Corso di laurea ______________________________________________________________
Durata _____________________________________________________________________
Crediti Ore
Ambito cronologico: ___________________________________________________________

Antichità / Medioevo / Età Moderna / Età Contemporanea / Tutto
Programma del corso:

_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Testi adottati:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Numero di studenti frequentanti ______________________________________________
Titoli di eventuali tesi di laurea o di dottorato in Storia Urbana in corso o discusse:

_____________________________________________________________________________
Accordi di scambio di studenti e/o docenti attivati nell’ambito dei Programmi Erasmus/
Socrates o altro che comprendono corsi di Storia urbana:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Eventuale interesse a partecipare a iniziative e convegni dell’AISU: _________________

SÌ / NO
85
Italian Association of Urban History

Questionnaire on teaching Urban History in Italian Universities
Teacher _____________________________________________________________________
First name SURNAME Academic position
Seat ________________________________________________________________________
University Department
Course denomination ________________________________________________________
Final Special Urban History topics inside more general courses with different titles:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Level _______________________________________________________________________
First level / Second level / Master’s degree / PhD
Faculty _____________________________________________________________________
Curriculum _________________________________________________________________
Duration ___________________________________________________________________
Credits Hours
Chronological scope: ________________________________________________________

Ancient Times / Middle Ages / Early Modern / Modern / All
Course programme:
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Textbooks:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Number of attending students: ________________________________________________
Titles of final BA or PhD dissertations in progress or discussed:

_____________________________________________________________________________
Student and/or teacher exchange programmes active inside Erasmus/Socrates or other

courses including Urban History:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Interested in participating in Association initiatives and conferences: _______________

Yes / No
86
Hungary
Hungary
Erika Szívós
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
The academic embeddedness of urban history in Hungary

When one asks to what degree urban history is institutionalized in the
academic sphere in Hungary, it has to be understood that one is talking
about an essentially conservative system in which the overall profile of
history departments is still dominated by political history. Trends and fields
such as economic and social history, historical anthropology, cultural history,
or methods such as quantification, penetrated the university history
curriculum decades later than in Western Europe, and these ‘new’ fields
are still often in a marginal position. Urban history, although it existed,
was not based in academic institutions during the 1970s and 1980s. It was
represented mostly by a number of scholars who worked at various public
collections or research institutes, and had little influence within universities.
A traditional type of local history also existed throughout the period,
represented by local museums, archives and their publications on the one
hand, city monographs on the other; but works that were informed by
international developments in urban history were rare.
Nonetheless, the 1980s witnessed a gradual liberalization allowing

academic and research institutions greater international relations. Although
foreign research and study opportunities, grants and scholarships were
strictly controlled by the state, these opportunities were becoming more
numerous, and relationships between foreign and Hungarian scholars were
observed with less suspicion than before. This fact, coupled with
diminishing ideological pressure on universities and especially on research
87
institutions, explains why new trends in historical research could slowly

begin to gain ground in Hungary. The crisis of the formerly dominant Marxist
ideology could be felt in the social sciences as well.
The collapse of communism in 1989-1990 naturally brought about a

turning point. During the early 1990s the slow changes which began in the
earlier period could begin to bear fruit. New schools of historical scholarship
could finally be established within a university setting, due to the
liberalisation and expansion of the higher education system. Several new
departments were founded at various universities, representing fields which
had hitherto had no academic basis in Hungary: the humanities, cultural
anthropology, theoretical linguistics and communication/media studies can
be mentioned as examples. In this wave of development, in 1991, a new
Department of Economic and Social History was founded at Eötvös Loránd
University (ELTE) in Budapest. Connections with international scholars and
their institutions, formed earlier, could now intensify after the collapse of
communism. Professor Vera Bácskai, one of the founders and first head of
the Department of Economic and Social History, played a crucial role in
activating these international linkages, especially because the founding of
the department roughly coincided with the formation of the European
Association of Urban Historians (1992), in which Vera Bácskai became a
member of the International Committee. Urban history was thus strongly
represented in the profile of this department from the very beginning.
Another new history department was founded at Miskolc University in
Northern Hungary during the same period. As is often the case with new
foundations, the profile of this young department could be formed relatively
free from binding traditions: it attracted a number of scholars who were
adherents of new schools in historiography.1 For example, Zoltán Tóth,
author of definitive works on urban social developments in Hungarian small
towns, joined this department in the early phase.
An important phenomenon of the early 1990s was the complete

liberalization of grants and scholarships; several new exchange programmes
and research opportunities suddenly became available. Running in parallel
with the existing ERASMUS exchange scheme, TEMPUS was tailored
specifically to the needs of Eastern- and Central Eastern Europeans. Some
new departments were particularly eager to take this opportunity. A string
of students connected to the Department of Economic and Social History
at ELTE spent an extended period at Western European universities, a
1
For the structure and framework of teaching history, see www.uni-miskolc.hu.
88
Hungary
number of them acquiring Masters Degrees at the Centre for Urban History
at the University of Leicester in Great Britain. The MA theses written by
these Hungarian students at Leicester were, without exception, comparative
studies in urban history which relied on the rich corpus of Western
European works while concentrating on Central-Eastern European topics.
Yet another new development in the Hungarian university system was

the transformation of doctoral training. Until the mid 1990s, doctoral
research was controlled and degrees awarded by the Academy of Sciences,
by then a Soviet-type network of research institutes independent from
universities. Although the Academy of Sciences and its institutes have
survived to the present day, doctoral training, the right to supervise thesis
work and to grant PhDs has been delegated to various graduate schools
within the universities. The doctoral programme of the Department of
Economic and Social History at ELTE was founded in 1995. Urban history
was represented strongly from the beginning, by internationally renowned
scholars such as Vera Bácskai and later Gábor Gyáni. Besides the founding
professors, visiting lecturers have also participated, some of them teaching
urban history. Recent visiting professors such as András Sipos, a senior
archivist at the Budapest City Archives, have directly strengthened the
ties between graduate training in urban history and archival resources.
As a result of this graduate school’s strong focus on urban history, an

increasing number of doctoral theses oriented toward urban history have
been written in recent years. The periods covered range from the
medieval/early modern to the decades after 1945. Dissertations have so
far concentrated on themes such as socialist cities of the post-1945 period;
the lifestyles of urban populations in the 1950s; urban society in various
towns in the nineteenth century; welfare policies in nineteenth-century
Hungarian cities and so on. Some members of the first generation of
young scholars who were either students of the Department or completed
their PhDs in its doctoral school have already acquired academic positions
at various universities all around Hungary. These people have the potential
to carry on the tradition, introduce new themes, and inspire further
cohorts of undergraduate students to either do their thesis work in urban
history or specialise in this field later on.
Following the collapse of the communist regime other important

workshops were established, and these have often been in close
collaboration with the aforementioned schools. The Atelier Urbanistique,
later renamed Atelier French-Hungarian Workshop for Social Sciences,
89
was founded in 1989 by György Granasztói and Rose-Marie Lagrave, as a

co-operative venture between Eötvös Loránd University, the Paris-based
École des Haute Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), and the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences. This institute, also within ELTE, represents the
‘francophile’ side of social science in Hungary: it has developed close
contacts with French universities and institutions, first and foremost with
EHESS in Paris. Since 1997, the Atelier has also functioned as a doctoral
school. Its aim, from the beginning, has been to bring younger Hungarian
scholars into close contact with the Annales tradition. In practical terms,
one of its important tasks has been to prepare students for French doctoral
training; outstanding students of the Atelier, who manage to get study
grants from the French state, can participate in a joint French-Hungarian
doctoral programme, and are eventually awarded a joint degree issued
by ELTE in Budapest and EHESS in Paris. Today, Atelier is formally a
university department, which, since 2000, has been linked to the Centre
for Social Sciences. The broader functions of the Centre today include
the co-ordination of francophile social scientific research in Hungary,
the promotion of scholarly contacts between Hungary and France
(including the regular invitation of guest lecturers), and book publishing;
in general, its aim is to provide a stimulating environment for post-
doctoral research.2
Since the founder of Atelier, György Granasztói is himself an urban

historian, a good number of his former students, now younger colleagues,
who define the profile of the Atelier, are themselves scholars of urban
history. Some of them, during the years of their postgraduate studies,
were students of the late Bernard Lepetit, a crucial figure in the European
Association of Urban Historians in its early years. One of them is Gábor
Sonkoly, present head of the Atelier department, who also teaches courses
in urban studies at the Doctoral School for Economic and Social History.
Besides nurturing established branches of urban history, new approaches
and frameworks are also discussed in the Atelier: in the courses taught
and works published by Atelier contributors, concepts such as the social
history of space, cultural heritage, and nationalism have attracted attention
in recent years. Cities are also discussed within wider contexts, focusing,
for instance, on the role they have played in European civilisation, or at
a regional and national level.
2
See www.atelier-centre.hu/magunkrol/tizenotev/granasztoi.html. For details of the Atelier in French,
see the same website.
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Hungary
The regional approach is represented by a number of senior and junior

professors at ELTE (including the author of the present article), some of whom
are affiliated with other departments. Most of these professors, such as András
Gero´´ and Vilmos Heiszler, have a strong background in Central European
studies, often specializing in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. One could
argue that the interests of these historians incline more towards the political
side of urban history (urban politics and mass rituals, for example), and towards
architecture and urban planning. The material they cover sometimes overlaps
with what is taught in art history departments and, even more conspicuously,
with courses offered to architecture majors at technical universities.
As far as the institutionalization of new approaches is concerned, other

Hungarian universities seem worse off at first sight. As it was pointed out at
the beginning of this article, the profile of history departments in Hungarian
universities is relatively traditional. The curriculum is usually defined by
chronologically structured political history, and the coursework of history
students is assumed to cover all periods, from the Palaeolithic to the late
twentieth century, for both Hungarian and world history. The question as to
whether such requirements can be anywhere near realistic is a well-rehearsed
topic of debate among students and professors alike. Nonetheless, in spite
of the overwhelmingly conservative structure of university departments, new
trends have seemingly made inroads into the history curriculum. Although,
with the exception of ELTE, economic, social and cultural history is not
taught within independent departments at Hungarian universities, there
have been an increasing number of courses in these fields. At the Universities
of Pécs and Szeged, two cities in the south of Hungary, a third of the history
courses taught between 2000 and 2005 can be classified as economic, social
and cultural history, including sub-fields such as historical demography and
historical anthropology.3 Within this third, urban history is also represented.
At Szeged University, specific courses are offered regularly on medieval French
towns (Prof. László Gálffy) and medieval Hungarian urban development (Prof.
István Petrovics), and urban history also forms part of courses that focus
more broadly on economic and social history. At Pécs University, courses
such as ‘Urban Development and Urban Society in Hungary from the
Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century’, ‘History of Urban Planning’, and
‘European Urban History from the Late Nineteenth Century to World War
One’ were offered for history majors between 2000 and 2005.4
3
For Szeged University, see www.u-szeged.hu, for Pécs University, www.pte.hu; specifically for the
curriculum (in Hungarian), see http://tanrend.btk.pte.hu.
4
http://tanrend.btk.pte.hu.
91
At the University of Debrecen, the main centre in Eastern Hungary,

the history curriculum is fairly conservative, although – somewhat
paradoxically – some of the senior professors, especially among the
eighteenth to twentieth century experts, are renowned social and urban
historians, including Zsuzsa L. Nagy, Péter Gunst and Lajos Timár.5 On
the other hand, the history PhD programme at the local graduate school
is fairly open to ‘new directions in historical writing’, to borrow the title
of a volume edited by Peter Burke. This has much to do with the fact that
the aforementioned professors were actively involved in launching this
doctoral programme, Professor Gunst currently acting as its head.
The system of higher education in transition

On the basis of the so-called Bologna Agreement, the Hungarian system
of higher education is undergoing a complete transformation. This
transition, promoted by the Ministry of Education, has been generating
bitter debate inside the academic community, and even more bitter conflict
between Hungarian universities and the present government. The system
of higher education in Hungary has, until now, been based on two types of
institution: the four-year colleges (similar to Hochschulen in Germany)
and the five-year universities. The degrees issued by the two types of
institutions qualify graduates for different types of jobs and professions:
for example, a secondary-school teacher, a medical doctor or a lawyer must
possess a university degree. It is not easy to adjust this time-honoured
system to the new requirements, and establish a universal structure similar
to the present Anglo-American system of higher education (Three years of
Bachelors studies, one to two years of Masters studies, and further years
for a PhD). There is much uncertainty about both the content of education
at Bachelors level and the value of future Bachelors degrees.
National-level curricula guidelines for Bachelors education are currently

being developed in each field by representatives from all Hungarian
universities. It is as yet unclear whether newer trends in historiography
manage to secure enough representation in an environment which is still
essentially traditional, dominated by chronologically structured political
history. At ELTE, in the system currently being devised, economic and social
history, urban history, and related fields such as historical anthropology
will maintain their position, although they will continue to be proportionally
5
www.unideb.hu; for the history curriculum (in Hungarian), see ‘Tanrend 2004-2005’ at http://
btk.unideb.hu.
92
Hungary
under-represented elements of the history curriculum for Bachelors

students. It appears at the moment that Masters and PhD programmes will
be the main platform for teaching these fields of history.
In spite of this, urban history deserves to maintain its current status

at undergraduate and graduate level. Experience suggests that there
remains a lively interest in the history of cities among all age cohorts at
universities, and urban history seminars are usually attended by large
groups of students. There are a number of possible explanations for this.
Urban history is an especially versatile discipline, the representatives of
which – as international conferences show - may come from a variety of
fields such as social history, architectural history, art history, urban
sociology, anthropology, urban planning or conservation. Thus urban
history can be a relevant field of study, or point of reference, to scholars
and students from a broad range of backgrounds. In the case of local
students, personal attachment to a particular city can work as a motivating
factor too. Indeed, student projects and assignments often draw on local
identities; these assignments may involve a variety of methods and
techniques, such as historical case studies of certain neighbourhoods or
architecturally important areas, interviews or even photography.
Local attachment can be exploited on another level, too. Feelings of

national identity are often mobilized, especially when a student’s home
city is shown in regional and European comparison. Competition between
regional capitals has a long tradition in Central Europe: metropolises
such as Budapest and Prague were greatly inspired during their formative
phase by their desire to compete with each other as well as with the
great European capitals of that period. Today, when many countries within
Central-Eastern Europe have recently joined the European Union,
competition is again on the agenda: capitals and other cities of the region
all aspire to be regional economic, trade, logistic or cultural centres.
Students, who are concerned about the role their native cities can play
today, are usually eager to learn about the same kind of regional rivalry
in the past. The proximity of other capitals may prove helpful: many
Hungarian students interested in urban history have travelled to such
cities as Vienna, Prague, Zagreb or Warsaw, and have personal experiences
of several other European cities too. In general, it seems that many of
today’s students are passionate about urban affairs, sharply aware of urban
problems, and therefore interested in courses which offer to shed light
on the historical roots of the present situation.
93
Journals and conferences: a background of teaching urban history

Although the various academic forums such as conferences and
periodicals do not relate strictly to the topic of teaching urban history, it
is worth giving a quick overview of them. Motivated students interested
in urban history often already conduct their own research during their
senior years, and participate in conferences where they can publicise
their findings. Often the first steps toward developing a PhD thesis topic
are taken during the late undergraduate years. Remember that in the
present Hungarian system ‘undergraduate’ studies take five years, which
means that students begin to specialize during their third or fourth years.
Professors who direct their students toward urban history, encouraging
them to attend conferences and publish their first articles, help recruit
the next generation of urban historians.
When it comes to periodicals, urban history in Hungary is generally

most closely associated with journals relating to economic and social
history, historical anthropology, and various other trends in recent
historiography. A Szeged-based historical journal entitled AETAS,
characterized from its inception by an open-minded editorial spirit, has
given room to publications in urban history from time to time. An even
fresher quarterly entitled Korall, founded and edited largely by former
and current students of the Doctoral School for Economic and Social
History at Eötvös Loránd University, has recently devoted a thematic issue
to urban history.6 A comprehensive review of the 2002 Edinburgh
conference of the European Association Urban Historians appeared in
this volume.7 Korall authors also regularly review new books related to
urban history. For the sake of fairness it has to be noted that older historical
journals with a more traditional profile, such as Századok [Centuries],
have recently become more willing to engage with newer ideas and
debates, and occasionally review monographs in such fields as social,
urban or cultural history.
There are a number of journals devoted exclusively to urban history,

although their focus is usually a broad one. Two periodicals, both of
which consider Budapest their focal point, represent this category.
Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából [Studies from the Past of Budapest]
6
Korall Társadalomtörténeti Folyóirat, 4: 11-12 (2003). ‘A város és társadalma’ [The City and its Society],
thematic issue. For general information on the periodical, see www.korall.org.
7
Árpád Tóth, ‘Hatalom, tudás és társadalom a városban: Beszámoló az Európai Várostörténészek
Egyesületének Edinburgh-I konferenciájáról’, Korall, 4: 11-12 (2003), p. 260-3.
94
Hungary
was founded as a yearbook in 1932. Due to political events in a turbulent

century, however, its publication ceased from time to time, and became
regular only in the 1990s. Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából has given
space to a large spectrum of topics in recent decades. Besides articles on
urban society in Buda and Pest over various periods, art history and
archaeology have also featured in it, as well as articles on the architectural
heritage of Budapest. A recent outstanding issue was the 2002 volume,
which was based on a conference about the century-long process of
creating Greater Budapest.8 Occasionally, TBM publishes articles on other
Hungarian cities as well.
Budapesti Negyed [Budapest Quarterly] was founded in 1993.9 Its
˜ intended the journal to appeal not only to
editor-in-chief, András Gero,
the scholarly community but also to a broader public. The enterprise
proved to be a success, and Budapesti Negyed, with its very readable
articles, carefully formatted pages and excellent photographic material
(selected and edited by experts from the photographic archives of the
Hungarian National Museum), has indeed managed to attract a sizeable
readership among scholars and lay readers alike. It is perhaps worth
mentioning that there has been considerable public interest in the history
of the Hungarian capital in recent years, shown by, for example, the
success of the ‘Month of Museums’ events. As part of this cultural festival,
organized in September every year, architectural historians and urban
history experts invite amateurs to join them on certain days for guided
walks introducing the city’s lesser known heritage. Often literally
hundreds of people - mostly locals - show up for these publicised walks.
This group of city enthusiasts is quite likely to overlap with the regular
non-academic readership of periodicals such as Budapesti Negyed. The
issues of Budapesti Negyed are always thematic. Topics range from the
multicultural past of Budapest through urban planning to crime and urban
social conflicts; some issues, such as the one entitled ‘Metropolitan
Poverty’, deal not with Budapest but with other great cities of the world.
URBS Várostörténeti Szemle (URBS Urban History Review) is a new
initiative, which has stated its intention of becoming a general urban
history journal for Hungary. Although the editorial headquarters are
located at the Budapest City Archives, the journal does not intend to
8
Az ötven éves Nagy-Budapest: el_zmények és megvalósulás. Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából, 30
(2002).
9
Many of the earlier issues of Budapesti Negyed (with full texts of the articles) can be found online at
http://www.bparchiv.hu/magyar/kiadvany/bpn/index.shtml.
95
focus on the Hungarian capital; instead, it wishes to bring together various

research fields of urban history, covering various towns, cities and
historical periods. Also, according to the editors, URBS will monitor
international developments in urban history through reviews of foreign
books, conference reports and articles published in translation.
Conferences
The Historical Museum of Budapest and Budapest City Archives often
organize conferences of interest to urban historians. The István Hajnal
Association for Social History, which provides a forum for historians
interested in newer approaches in historiography, also holds annual
conferences. The Association began to organize regular conferences in 1986,
and became a formally registered organization in 1989. Already in its early
years, two conferences have been devoted fully or partially to urban history,
one in the 1990 at Keszthely, the other in 1993 at Debrecen.10 Aspects of
urban history have featured at the other István Hajnal conferences, often
intimately linked to other branches of Hungarian social history, in a way
that is similar to the alliance between these two fields in the academic
sphere, and is also visible in the profiles of certain periodicals. The thematic
conferences of the István Hajnal Association (in 2000 on microhistory, in
2002 on gender, and in 2003 on historical time) offered plenty of opportunity
for urban historians to present aspects of their research in a supportive
environment, and exchange ideas with like-minded scholars.
At Pécs, there are also regular events, which, though not historical in
orientation, are usually very welcoming to urban historians. The local
Department of Modern Literature and its doctoral school organizes
programmes and conferences which often focus on representations of,
and discourse on, the city. Their 2004 conference entitled ‘Spaces, Images
and Maps: the Modern City’, attracted a good number of historians and
urban studies experts as well as literature and arts scholars.
Summary
After the political turn of 1989-1990, Hungary’s transition into a
democracy made itself felt in the system of higher education, too. Although
the rigid and conservative structures built up during the previous regime
often still define the framework in which the humanities are taught, the
liberal spirit of the past fifteen years has created the opportunity for various
alternative schools in these fields to establish themselves. Urban history, in
96
Hungary
alliance with fields such as economic and social history, is now an important
element in the profiles of several history departments and doctoral schools,
or is at least regularly represented by an increasing number of courses in
the curricula at Hungarian universities. The process of liberalisation and
democratisation in the field of culture has also made it much easier to start
new journals, and to create forums for exchanging new ideas. Besides the
improving conditions at archives, libraries and specialized collections,
students of urban history can now rely on a widening variety of periodicals
in which they can find relevant articles, and in which they may be able to
publish their own papers. Similarly, conferences are now relatively easy to
organise, and they are freed from political and institutional pressure.
Motivated senior and postgraduate students are welcome at many
conferences, and this often helps them to integrate into, and establish
personal connections within, academic circles.
97
98
Poland
10
Poland
Halina Manikowska and Urszula Sowina
Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences,Warsaw
A report about teaching urban history at Polish universities could be

summed up in a single sentence: there simply is no such subject. Yet a
negative statement of this sort does not fully describe the situation in
Poland, indicate its causes or explain why certain universities have
developed an expertise in urban history, often conducting research of a
very high standard.1 Thus we focus here on those features of the
curriculum and organization of courses which have enabled these
developments in urban history to take place.
Poland came out of the communist era with a small number of

universities, one of the lowest post-school participation ratios in Europe,
and a uniform nationwide curriculum despite the autonomy given to
Polish schools of higher learning. In the course of the last fifteen years
the number of students in higher and further education increased from
about 400,000 to almost 2 million, with 71.6 % studying at state schools
of high learning, the only ones to have university status. The number of
higher education institutions has increased threefold (particularly private
colleges, which offer a limited range of courses, often specializing in the
1
Mention may be made of several issues that have become the main subjects of urban history studies.
In the first two post-war decades they included mainly the origin of medieval towns, town locationes
based on German law, and medieval crafts; for the early-modern period the emphasis was on trade,
predominantly international trade. Contemporary historians dealt primarily with the working class
and capitalist transformations. During the last thirty years such problems as the socio-topography of
medieval and early-modern towns, ruling elites in medieval towns, historical town planning, social
transformations in the nineenth- and twentieth-century town, small towns in the early-modern era,
and religious life in medieval towns, have come to the forefront.
99
humanities or economic sciences), whilst the number of students has

risen fourfold. The largest Polish universities have doubled or tripled
their number of students. Yet, the spontaneous development of the higher
education sector, due to increasing demand from young people, has
preceded necessary legislative and organizational changes, as well as
debate about the objectives, methodology and structures of this type of
education. Reform of the sector has been rendered necessary by Poland’s
accession to the European Union, and in particular by the Bologna
Process. The implementation of these reforms has varied from place to
place, although it is possible to pick out certain general trends: larger
schools, such as Warsaw University and its more than 60,000 students,
have faced greater organizational problems, and hence the reform process
here has been more chaotic and remains less advanced.
This introduction may, at first glance, appear rather remote from the
topic at hand, but is necessary since it explains one of the reasons for
curriculum ‘conservatism’ on the one hand, and the haphazard nature
of changes to this curriculum on the other. This holds true especially for
the humanities and social sciences, including history, which have the
longest tradition of university courses. History is taught at Polish
universities in various faculties alongside a range of other humanities
disciplines: history (also includes departments such as the history of art,
archaeology, anthropology and ethnography, musicology, library studies
and scientific information); history-philosophy (in this case, the major
subject is philosophy, and the historical disciplines are less prominent),
history-teaching (with history and educational studies dominating) or
history-philology (a rare combination found only at the smallest
universities). History lectures are also held in other faculties, as subsidiary
elements of the main course: economics (economic history, with particular
emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth century), sociology and
philosophy (primarily the history of ideas), law (the history of the state
and law) and philology (the history of the countries with a given language).
Certain architecture faculties (at polytechnics) have also opened
departments specializing in the history of town planning.
This paper focuses on the curricula where history was the major
course. Despite some important differences, these history courses all
owe their origins to a curriculum scheme that had been compulsory in
the few prewar Polish universities, with their small number of students
and sparse teaching staff. The basic structure consisted of a division into
great historical epochs: antiquity, the Middle Ages, modern times and
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Poland
contemporary history. After mastering these disciplines, assessed via large-

scale examinations covering an entire epoch, students selected seminar
classes that prepared them for their MA degree. The seminar curriculum
of each department was determined by the research interests of the senior
professor, usually the head of the department, and veniam legendi. After
the Second World War, the most important curriculum changes stemmed
from the introduction of Marxism, which was established as the
compulsory research methodology for the humanities and social sciences.
New organizational models were also introduced. These primarily
involved the gradual replacement of the chair system with large institutes
such as history and history of art, within which smaller departments,
responsible for organizing research, were based. The introduction of
Marxist thought, as well as the reorientation of the historical
consciousness of Polish society, was accomplished partly through changes
to the way history was taught. The education system was under constant
surveillance by the communist party, including the special services, and
teaching was subject to censorship. This learning environment yielded
developments in research into economic and social history, and the
introduction of courses focusing on the history of the eastern bloc
countries, with the history of Russia, the Soviet Union, the working class
movement and communist parties enjoying a privileged position.
Moreover, old universities, such as Wroclaw, and new institutions like
the Mikolaj
´ Kopernik University in Torun, ´ which were situated in areas
incorporated into Poland following the post-war settlement, introduced
both into their curriculum and historical research assorted elements of
regional history in order to document the Polishness of these northern
and western districts.
All these changes, dictated by ideology and contemporary politics,

failed to undermine the old scheme of teaching history divided into
epochs, since the overall vision of education remained unchanged and
history graduates continued to find employment as teachers, archivists,
librarians and researchers. This teaching framework was also preserved
because a nucleus of academics remained who had obtained their PhD
degrees before the war, and the period during which ideology was
rigorously imposed upon historical study and research was relatively short
lived, ending in the mid-1950s. This then was the curriculum structure
inherited by the universities in 1989. The changes they introduced
frequently took the form of a reaction to the communist past: departments
specializing in the history of the Party were closed down wherever they
still existed; a similar fate befell those concentrating on the history of the
101
working class movement. Courses on the history of Russia and the Soviet
Union were also removed from the syllabus, as were obligatory Russian
language classes, and Marxist political economy, introduced as a
compulsory subject in 1968 after the so-called March events and the anti-
Semitic purge in Poland. Their places were taken by an expanded
curriculum, which offered numerous monographic lectures, seminars
and selected courses; the number of specializations also grew (teaching,
archival, editorial, general history, and the history of culture, for example).
A survey of the curriculum introduced for history major courses,

available at state universities and certain private schools of high learning,
leads to two conclusions. First, the topics covered by monographic
lectures, proseminars and seminars depended largely on the current
research interests of the historians conducting them. Since group studies
were not sufficiently developed, these lectures were not properly
integrated into wider research programmes even where the university in
question had been successfully developing such programmes for years.
This remark applies even to PhD courses, which frequently still do not
have a separate curriculum, and are limited to compulsory attendance at
PhD seminars or lectures, and the teaching of students. Secondly, lectures
and seminars augmenting the history curriculum, which continues to be
divided by epoch, can be grouped under a few broad headings: the history
of the Church, military history, regional history and, more rarely, historical
geography. The significance of urban history within these curricula is
slight. As a rule, urban history is not treated as a distinct discipline, but
merely as a particular problem within a wider research agenda or teaching
syllabus.
In view of the enormous variation of university curricula, it would be

difficult to present a coherent picture of general course structures and
formats. Consequently we draw here on the example of the history course
available at the Mikolaj
´ Kopernik University in Torun. ´ This course has
been chosen because it is distinctive in two respects: firstly, there are
well-defined subdivisions into so-called scientific specializations, set
within more general specializations, such as general history or knowledge
about culture. ECTS has also been introduced. Another important factor
is the notable research profile of the local Institute of History and Archival
Studies, which focuses on the history of Prussia and Gdansk ´ Pomerania,
with a prominent place assigned to urban history. The students choose
their scientific specialization at the beginning of the third year. Each
specialization consists of 300-360 hours of courses, with a total of 54
102
Poland
plus 6 points for the final exam. Students who have selected a general
history specialization can choose between the history of ancient
civilizations, the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine,
Belarus and Lithuania), the history of the Romance countries, the history
of culture, socio-economic history, military history, German studies, and
contemporary document management. Enrolment on an MA seminar
course requires completing a specialization whose topic is associated
with that of the seminar. In other words, one would expect urban history
to be part of the socio-economic specialization taught by Prof. Krzysztof
Mikulski, one of the best Polish experts on the history of mediaeval and
early modern Prussian towns. The curriculum includes the following
seminar topics (there are no specialized lectures): ‘The Methodology of
Social Sciences’ (60 hours), ‘Problems and Methods of Economic History’
(30 hours), ‘Sources and Methods for Social History Research’ (30 hours),
‘Polish Medieval Social History’ (30 hours), ‘Polish Social History of the
Sixteenth-Eighteenth Century’ (30 hours), ‘Polish Social History of the
Nineteenth-Twentieth Century’ (15 hours), ‘Polish Social History 1945-
1989’ (30 hours), ‘Systemic and Social Transformations in Poland after
1989’ (30 hours), ‘The History of Everyday Life’ (30 hours), ‘Long Duration
Processes’ (30 hours) and ‘Micro-history’ (30 hours). Historical statistics
and demography are taught as compulsory courses for all the students,
divided according to epoch as history courses are. None of the
monographic lectures and proseminars deal with urban history as such,
nor with the theory of towns or the history of town planning.
The current state of historical teaching in Poland reflects the absence of

a debate about history curricula, either at a national or European Union
level, which might look at the major courses offered and the range of
specializations. Neither the Polish Committee for Historical Sciences nor
the historical commissions acting under its auspices have become a forum
for such a debate. As a result hopes for the introduction of urban history as
a separate subject depend largely on the Bologna Process and the ensuing,
as yet rather limited, organization of studies based on three cycles. Early
result are certainly encouraging: at the Mediterranean Studies Masters cycle,
newly established at Warsaw University, history lectures have centred on
urban history and civilization in the Mediterranean Basin. We might expect
other faculties such as law, economics, and environmental protection to
develop studies intended for persons employed in public administration
and the local government. The experiences gained by some Polish historians
whilst holding municipal office certainly indicate the need for teaching future
civil servants and aldermen urban history and especially the theory of towns,
103
the history of law and urban government, and town planning. One of the
courses in urban history designed to meet the needs of local government
are the lectures offered for the past few years by the Inter-Faculty Study
Programme in Environmental Protection at Warsaw University. This course,
‘Water and Municipal Space Organization in the Middle Ages and Early
Modern Era’, sets the experience of Polish towns against a comparative
European background from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. On the
other hand, the curriculum at the government post-graduate National School
of Public Administration, intended for the highest civil servants corps, totally
ignores history and should constitute a warning: the introduction of teaching
in urban history depends fundamentally on the historians themselves, their
pressure and readiness to propose good curricula.
We attach great hope to the initiative of publishing assorted remarks

on teaching urban history at European universities, and intend to treat
this publication as a source of inspiration for devising such curricula.
104
Sweden
11
Sweden
Lars Nilsson
Institute of Urban History, Stockholm University
The university teaching system

The Swedish university system has changed rapidly during recent
decades. Previously, history and other subjects could be studied at five
universities (Uppsala, Lund, Stockholm, Göteborg and Umeå). Today
university courses are offered at a wide range of cities and towns all over
Sweden. New university colleges have been set up in many towns and
some of these colleges have later been upgraded to universities. Courses
in urban history are normally given by departments of history, economic
history and art history, though urban history courses can also be found
in the study programmes of other departments.
The basic university degree in Sweden called ‘kandidatexamen’

(Bachelor’s degree) requires at least three years of full-time study. After
that it is possible to continue full-time for another year and receive a
‘magisterexamen’ (Master’s degree). It is also possible to obtain a
certificate (‘högskoleexamen’) after studying full-time for two years. There
are two ways of obtaining a general degree, either by following a study
programme or by combining single subject courses.
The main subject of a Bachelor’s degree (“kandidatexamen”) must

have been studied during at least three of the required six semesters (90
ects credits out of 180 ects credits) and must include an independent
thesis of 15 ects credits. A Master’s degree (“magisterexamen”) requires
120 ects credits out of 240 to be in the main subject (four semesters of
full-time study), including one independent thesis of at least 30 ects credits
105
or two independent theses of 15 ects credits each. After successfully

completing a Master’s degree it is possible to apply for studies at PhD
level, though only a very limited number of applicants are approved
because of restrictive financial regulations that require the department
to guarantee PhD candidates in advance sufficient financial resources for
at least four years.
In most departments each subject is normally studied separately, one

subject per semester. A subject, such as history, comprises several courses.
Students study one course at a time and the final examination takes place
at the end of each course, that is, after every 5-20 weeks. There are no
examination periods at the end of each semester or at the end of the
academic year. All subjects have four course levels: Basic, Intermediate,
Advanced and Specialised, and a pass at the previous level is a condition
for admission to a higher level. Each level normally consists of 30 ects
credits/20 Swedish points. To obtain a Master’s degree (“magisterexamen”)
you must pass all four levels, while a Bachelor’s degree (“kandidatexamen”)
requires the first three.
Courses on urban history

Courses on urban history can be found at each level: basic,
intermediate, advanced and specialised. At the advanced level, for
example, an optional course of 7.5 ects credits on urban history can be
offered as a part of the total programme. Urban history courses of similar
length can be found at basic, intermediate and specialised level. Even
PhD students are offered courses of varying length on urban history.
Furthermore, at all course levels students can choose to write their theses
on an urban history topic.
Urban history courses are taught at all universities and university

colleges, though rarely on a permanent or continuous basis. Courses are
in many cases optional and temporary. After some years they may be
replaced by other optional courses. At many of the new universities and
university colleges it has been common to offer local history courses,
focusing on the history of the host town and its surroundings. The
University College of Mälardalen, located in Västerås and Eskilstuna, has,
for example, offered basic and intermediate courses (7.5 ects credits) on
the history of Västerås and Eskilstuna respectively. The same holds true
for many other places, where higher education institutions were
established during the second half of the nineteenth century. Other
courses have been developed on specific aspects of the city such as
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Sweden
healthcare, poverty, demographic developments and so on. Sometimes

courses are given on a half-time basis, and they can also include distance
learning and Internet facilities.
The most established teaching of urban history takes place at

Stockholm University, and is often directed by the Institute of Urban
History. The Institute was founded in 1919 as a research centre, and a
part of the Swedish Confederation of Towns. Its prime objective was to
stimulate and encourage interest in all forms of urban history. Over time
the Institute became more closely linked to the academic world. Teaching
at Stockholm University College (later Stockholm University) started in
the 1940s. In the early 1950s a chair in urban history was established in
Stockholm, linked to the Institute, and appointed as its Director. There
were three partners behind the Institute: The Confederation of Swedish
Towns (later The Swedish Association of Local Authorities), The City of
Stockholm, and Stockholm University College (later Stockholm
University). This structure still exists.
Teaching urban history is one of the many objectives of the Institute;

its main purpose, however, is to promote more general interest in urban
history. The Institute is not an independent teaching centre, since all
courses are decided, administered and organised by the Department of
History. Courses on the History of Stockholm are frequently offered to
undergraduates, and always attract a lot of students. At PhD level we also
have a number of people working on dissertations with an urban theme
as well as taking urban history courses.
Master’s in European Urbanisation

The institute has also been involved in international teaching
programmes. A Master’s programme in European Urbanisation has been
developed together with the Centre for Urban History at the University
of Leicester, the Department of Geography at University College, Dublin
and the Department of Economic and Social History at Leiden University.
It is a one-year programme (60 ects credits), starting in Sweden every
autumn. The first course was given in the academic year 1998-99. The
EU initially funded course development and the production of course
materials. The programme has now run successfully for several years,
and of the four initiators Leicester and Stockholm are the most active.
Discussions on enlarging the programme to include more universities
have been ongoing, and this has resulted in the inclusion of the Technical
Universities in both Berlin (2003) and Darmstadt (2005).
107
Swedish students who apply must have studied history for at least
three semesters and passed the specialised course level, that is, they must
have 90 ects credits in history. After completion of the entire programme
they acquire 150 ects credits. This is unique for Sweden, because normally
students can only take history courses for four semesters and acquire
120 ects credits.
The Master’s Programme in European Urbanisation consists of six

different units, including a dissertation. The dissertation is the main part
amounting to 24 out of the 60 ects credits. In Sweden, dissertation work
starts immediately at the start of the first semester, continues over the
whole year, and is expected to be finished at the end of the second
semester, that is, at the end of May or early June. Besides the dissertation
training in methods, theories and approaches is provided during the
first semester, plus a course on themes in pre-modern urban history and
another on modern and contemporary urban history. Each of these
courses amounts to seven ects credits.
The programme includes an opportunity for the students to spend the

second semester at one of the partner universities and take two optional
courses (7.5 ects credits each). The exchange of students takes place within
the ordinary Erasmus programme, though there are examples of foreign
students from outside the partner universities and the Erasmus exchange
system participating in the Urban History Master’s Programme. In
Stockholm two optional courses are offered in English within the framework
of the Master’s Programme. Topics have varied although the focus has always
been on Swedish, Nordic or Scandinavian urban development.
One problem has been the recruitment of Master’s students; numbers

have been lower than expected, and consequently the department’s course
cost per student is rather high. As a result, we have made it possible for all
incoming foreign students to follow individual units without fulfilling the
whole programme. Another problem has been the exchanges of students.
The number of students coming to us has been much higher than the
number of outgoing students from Stockholm. Many of our own students
prefer to follow the whole programme at the home university. One reason
could be that many of them have family commitments or there are other
personal circumstances that make it difficult for them to be away from
home as long for as one semester. Study abroad also often lengthens the
period of study, which means that the student’s dissertation may suffer
and not be completed as required at the end of the second semester. The
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Sweden
pressure on Swedish students to fulfil their courses on time is today

considerable, and a long delay over the completion of the dissertation
could seriously affect their chances of a university career.
Internet courses
Besides the Master’s in European Urbanisation, the Institute has also
been active in developing an Internet based course Eurocities: Aspects of
European Urban Developments in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Seven
European universities participated in this project, which was coordinated
by the Erasmus University in Rotterdam: in addition to Stockholm the other
partners were Tampere, Lisbon, Essex, Salzburg and Warsaw. The course
started in the academic year 2000-2001 and the programme continued on
the European scale for two years, after which each partner could choose to
offer the course individually at his or her home university. All teaching took
place on the website using the software programme ‘Blackboard’. The course
was intended for undergraduates and amounted to 7.5 esct credits.
The Eurocities course consisted of seven units: Definitions, Urban

Systems, Urbanisation as Process, Infrastructures, Planning the City, Social
Effects of Urbanisation and the Post-Industrial City. All course materials
were produced and presented on the website by the partners in Stockholm,
Tampere, Lisbon and Rotterdam. Again the EU funded course development
and the setting up of ‘Blackboard’. Students were recruited from all seven
participating departments, and could establish their own homepage and
communicate via Blackboard with each other and with their teachers. After
completing the course documents students could get access to the
assignments, and for each unit there was a designated teacher and examiner.
Each teacher was responsible for one or more units, but not for the entire
assessment of the students from his or her own department. Teachers
assessed the final examination for the course jointly.
In Stockholm, the Eurocities course has been followed by the Internet

course “Människornas stad” (Cities and their People). This is also an
undergraduate course worth 7.5 ects credits, and is offered once every
academic year. The course includes three compulsary sections with a
third optional theme. Course material is available on the Internet but
the students must also consult books and journal articles in order to
complete the assignments. A common problem for our Internet courses
has been that they initially attract many students, but the proportion that
completes the programme could be higher.
109
Urban studies
Stockholm has for long been the main Swedish centre for urban history
research and teaching, and the research base here has recently been
expanded with the establishment of a chair in the history of Stockholm,
to work alongside the existing chair in urban history. A centre for local
history has been established at Linköping University in recent decades,
and Örebro University (formerly Örebro Univesity College) has introduced
urban studies in the same period. Recently a Master’s programme and
PhD school in Urban Studies have started in Örebro. Both have a
multidisciplinary approach, like the Master’s Programme in European
Urbanisation, combining political sciences, geography, sociology, social
work and history. The Master’s is a one-year programme with 60 ects
credits, focusing on topics like planning, local politics, social segregation,
crime and violence, and training in theory and methodology. Eleven
students have been selected for doctoral studies, a few of them
concentrating on history. In 2004-05 three PhD courses were offered
focusing on urban issues.
Summary
Academic interest in urban and local history has increased substantially
since the 1970s. New centres have been established, such as the Centre
for Local History in Linköping and the Centre for Urban Studies in Örebro.
Stockholm, however, remains the principal centre for urban history in
Sweden with two chairs in the discipline.
Today many recently established universities and university colleges

offer undergraduate courses in town history and local history. Growing
interest in urban history is also evident at MA and PhD level. New initiatives
have been taken using Internet facilities including the production of web-
based courses. An interdisciplinary approach is often stressed, and trans-
European comparisons have increasingly been stressed in courses such
as the Master’s in European Urbanisation and Eurocities. These courses
have also fostered closer co-operation with departments at other
European universities. This European integration will no doubt continue
within the framework of the Bologna process, and in future years we
may expect that further courses will be adapted to the format and standard
developed within the Bologna system.
110
Germany
11
Germany*
Heinz Reif
Technical University, Berlin
Urban History at German Universities before the European Union

“Bologna Guidelines”
The Structure of Arts and Humanities Degrees
Arts and Humanities courses in Germany embrace two, or more often
three, subjects which the student selects and combines. Courses are chosen
according to the career aspiration of the student. The Lehramtsstudiengang
(course with two equally weighted subjects) culminates in the
Staatsexamen, equivalent to finals (these are staggered depending on School
and place). Alternatively, the student can elect to go on to a
Magisterstudiengang, or Masters degree (two equally weighted main
subjects or one main subject plus two subsidiary subjects), which qualifies
one for a job beyond a career in education or as a civil servant. In the case
of the courses culminating in Staatsexamen, subject combinations are tied
to those subjects available within the School. In contrast the Masters courses
are limited only by the range of disciplines supported by the university
and their readiness to take part in the Masters course.
In concrete terms, this system encourages on the one hand a clear excess
of certain combinations (Literature and History, Literature and English Studies)
and on the other hand a broad spectrum of rarely combined subjects, for
example History as main subject, Information Technology as first
supplementary subject and Foundation Law as second supplementary subject.
*
Translated by Julie Deeming
111
After passing the finals or the Masters examinations an application to

begin a doctorate can be made and, if approved, an application can be
submitted for a two or three-year scholarship from the State or a foundation.
Urban History as a Main Course of Study

Urban History can only be studied within the bounds of a General
History degree. Gaining knowledge of and completing a doctorate in Urban
History is entirely dependent on whether the student studies at a University
with an Historical Institute, and at which there are professors teaching
with this particular research focus. At most German universities this is not
the case. Although the situation has improved considerably during the
past decade, students of history who aspire to study urban history as their
main subject are still forced to choose between the three or four universities
which have a long tradition and are known as institutes of urban research.
Universities which offer Urban History as a Main Focus of Study:

Modern urban history teaching and research outlets in the 1970s, 1980s
and 1990s were:
1. The University of Bochum (Wolfgang Koellmann, Antje Kraus, Peter
Marschalk, Helmut Croon, Juergen Reulecke und Dietmar Petzina),
with a methodological base predominantly in social and economic
history, demography and local self government (in particular the
financial and administrative history) of the city.
2. The University of Muenster/Institute for Comparative Urban History
with a strong medieval-early modern, regional focus (Heinz Stoob,
Wilfried Ehbrecht, Peter Johanek) und a further more minor focus
on modern urban history (Hans-Juergen Teuteberg, Wolfgang
Krabbe, Clemens Wischermann, Ruth Mohrmann).
3. Both west Berlin Universities (Free University Berlin, Technical
University Berlin), with a focus on the history of urbanisation,
demography, municipal social service adminstration as well as
architecture, town planning, and the history of industrial and large
cities (at the FU-Berlin: Hans Herzfeld, Otto Buesch, Christian Engeli,
Horst Matzerath, Wolfgang Ribbe; at the TU-Berlin: Wolfgang
Hofmann, Reinhard Ruerup, Heinz Reif, Christoph Bernard/Urban
History, Rainer Mackensen/Demographic history, Burkhard
Hofmeister/Geography, Hans Reuther und Fritz Neumeyer/History
of Architecture and Harold Bodenschatz/ Town Planning). In Berlin/
DDR Urban History remains only marginally respresented because
of the low status of the city in a centralised social system.
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Germany
Apart from these main centres, urban history modules have been
offered at various institutes of history, town planning, sociology, geography
and ethnology, in particular at the University of Frankfurt am Main (Dieter
Rebentisch, Marianne Rodenstein, Lothar Gall), Aachen (Gerd Fehl,
Tillman Harlander, Juan Rodroguez-Lores), Hanover (Adelheid von
Saldern, Ulf Herlyn, Peter Gleichmann), Bonn (Edith Ennen, Franz
Irsigler) und Darmstadt (Helmut Boehme, Dieter Schott).
2. New Regulations
Due to the necessity of adjusting all courses to the BA and MA system in
order to bring German degrees into line with the “Bologna Criteria”, two
new urban history courses have been produced in Germany so far. These are:
(i) TU-Darmstadt: “Geschichte-Umwelt-Stadt” (“History-

Environment-City”), is an explicitly research-oriented, interdisciplinary
MA course which will begin in the winter semester 2005-06. The course
focuses on the history and the future of the city and includes in particular
the ecological preconditions for urban life and its resulting costs.
Historians, architects, civil engineers, sociologists and cultural scientists

with a university degree are invited to apply. Alongside the core modules –
Geschichte-Umwelt-Stadt – the course offers practical, transferable skills
useful both for study and for career. The training also involves a period of
practical instruction. Twenty students will be accepted each year. Teaching
languages are German and English. (www.geschichte.tu-darmstadt.de)
(ii) TU-Berlin: The Centre for Metropolitan Studies in the Institute

of History and Art History at the Technical University is built on a
foundation of more than thirty years of continual intensive research and
teaching in the field of urban history. In addition it has a long tradition of
interdisciplinary collaboration with related disciplines at the Technical
University (Town Planning, Transport Science, Theory of Architecture,
Preservation of Countryside and Historic Monuments). On these
foundations two new courses have been developed:
(a) Transatlantic Graduate College Berlin-New York: “History and

Culture of the Metropolis in the Twentieth Century”
This graduate programme financed by the German Research Community
and intended as a 9 plus 1 project, involves 12 PhD and 2 post-doctoral
students in Berlin and 6 PhD students in New York. The programme is
113
supported by the three universities in Berlin (Freie Universitaet, Humboldt

Universitaet, Technische Universitaet) and two New York universities
(Columbia University and New York University). Students will be supervised
in Berlin, as in New York, by 12 professors. The College is based at the
Centre for Metropolitan Studies, Technical University Berlin. The training
programme includes a series of international conferences and workshops,
excursions and a period of at least six months study in New York or Berlin.
At present students attending the college come from seven nations and
from six subject disciplines. The languages of instruction are English and
German. The next advertisement of 12 doctoral and two post-doctoral
posts will occur in summer 2007.
(b) Masters Programme “Urbanisation-Mechanisation-Modern Living

Spaces”
This two-year interdisciplinary Masters programme, “Urbanisation-
Mechanisation-Modern Living Space”, has been developed by the Centre
for Metropolitan Studies and is an international, strongly practice-based
course. It has been designed with the strengths of the Technical University
in mind and wishes to impart a historically grounded insight that accentuates
the unique nature of the city. The following aspects will be encompassed:
the history of urbanisation in Europe during the internationalisation

and globalisation process;
• the past, present and future problems of the city and models of
urban development
• the diversity of spaces and built structures we have inherited since

antiquity
• insights into the structural conditions and combination of actors,

the standards of quality and resulting costs, the potential for
innovation and the limits of a highly technical and knowledge-
based production of high-quality urban living spaces at the turn of
the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The course has its focus in the history of urbanisation as well as in the
social, economic, technical and cultural history of the city and creates a bridge
to the other disciplines at the Technical University Berlin associated with the
planning and form of the city (Town Planning, Preservation of Monuments,
Architecture and Building Science, Traffic Science and Landscape Planning).
114
Germany
This two-year course will interest general, technical and art historians;
architects, building scientists and conservationists of historical buildings
and monuments; urban sociologists and town planners, and students of
other related subjects. The course will begin in the winter semester of
2007-08 with 20 students, who will have completed their first degree.
Languages of instruction will be English and German.
115
116
Studying Urban History: a Student’s Perspective
13
Studying Urban History:

a Student’s Perspective
Claire Townsend
I will begin with a confession: I had not even heard of ‘urban history’ as
a discipline until one of my undergraduate tutors suggested I apply for the
MA at Leicester in 2001. Further investigation revealed that not only was
the course the first of its kind in Europe, but that there was an entire
Centre devoted to the study of urban history. I was intrigued, and after
being offered a place, I enrolled on the course along with four other
students of mixed ages and backgrounds. According to the course handbook
with which we were issued at our first meeting with the tutors, the MA in
Urban History is designed to provide students with the key skills and core
areas of knowledge to enable them to go on to write a dissertation. Thus
the emphasis is very much on preparation for producing a piece of
independent research, which is grounded in relevant theory, uses a range
of appropriate methods and sources, and is written clearly. I do think that
the MA course at Leicester achieved this objective. Let me explain why.
Firstly, the structure of the course was designed in such a way as to

prepare us for undertaking our own historical research. On offer was a
mixture of subject-specific modules on aspects of urban history, plus
training sessions in social science research methods more generally, as
well as courses providing introductions to the use of economic concepts
and social theory in historical study. The social sciences courses were
unpopular with students, as they seemed to bear little relation to the
requirements of historical research: the use of questionnaires and
participant observation, for instance, were two methods that we were
117
unlikely to need. However, I have since found some of the approaches

introduced during the course useful in thinking about my own research
projects. In any case, given that urban history is a subject which impinges
upon other disciplines, I believe that it is vital not to shut ourselves off
from the insights that can be gained from other branches of the social
sciences, or indeed other, more purely scientific disciplines.
Secondly, the course surveyed a wide range of concepts and ideas

relating to the history of European urbanisation. With such a broad remit,
but a relatively short space of time in which to cover it, inevitably we
could only address a few aspects of urban history and merely scratched
the surface of the relevant literature. In one sense this was frustrating, as
the reason I had chosen the course was that I was fascinated by the history
of towns and wanted to learn as much about it as possible. But what the
course did do was to ‘whet our appetite’ for different aspects of urban
history, making us aware of the scope of the subject and its links to other
disciplines. We could use the topics introduced during the course as
inspiration for our dissertations or later PhD studies.
Thirdly, I believe that the course does have value as a preparation for
PhD work. The dissertation was most useful in this respect. For me, it
provided an opportunity to undertake a pilot study for my PhD project,
to assess the availability and ease of use of particular sources, and to
practise planning a project and producing a piece of original, historically
rigorous research, in a relatively restricted time period. Most importantly,
having done the one-year MA, a student can spend the following three
years working full time on a PhD, rather than finding that the first year of
the doctorate is taken up with training courses.
Overall, I did not find that the MA was much more challenging than
undergraduate study. I had been accustomed to working intensively and
having to evaluate arguments and make independent judgements. But
having come from a geography background, what the course did do for
me was to provide grounding in historical concepts, and essentially to
teach me how to write like an historian. One of the strengths of the MA, I
would argue, is that it draws students from a variety of disciplines including
sociology, anthropology, and even biology, so that the rest of the group
can benefit from looking at urban history ‘through different lenses.’ While
the MA does not encourage students to lose the insights from their own
disciplines, what it does do is to bring people from these divergent
backgrounds to the same level of historical knowledge and skill.
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Studying Urban History: a Student’s Perspective
Life as a Master’s student is about more than just courses and modules,
though. One of the aspects of the MA experience that I valued most was the
feeling of being part of a supportive and lively community at the Centre for
Urban History. MA students are strongly encouraged to attend research
seminars and workshops organised by academics as well as fellow
postgraduates, with opportunities for formal and informal discussion
afterwards. The atmosphere at the Centre is one in which established
researchers and less experienced students work and socialise alongside
each other in an environment of mutual respect and good humour. There
is much to learn when making the transition from undergraduate to
postgraduate level study, and the best way to climb that learning curve is to
draw on the advice and experience of those around you. Immersing yourself
in an active research community is an excellent way to achieve this.
To conclude, perhaps the key question is whether urban history should

be studied as a separate discipline in its own right. There is no quick and
simple answer to this, of course, but I would underline the importance of
studying towns in the context of their surroundings. It could be argued
that this devalues the idea of a specifically urban history. In fact it seems
that essentially what we often do as urban historians is simply to study an
aspect of economic and social history in a town rather than necessarily
thinking about how the specific character of towns affected their history. I
would argue that urban history’s inter-disciplinarity works against it having
a separate identity. It could just as easily be described as historical geography,
or social, cultural or economic history. ‘Urban history’ is a useful title for
departments, courses, modules, or conferences, but I wonder whether in
practice the separation of ‘urban history’ is somewhat artificial.
119
120
Spain
14
The role of multimedia websites

in teaching and research:
an exemplar based on the
urban history of Ferrol
José María Cardesín and Manuel González Penedo
Taller de Estudios Urbanos, University of A Coruña
‘The city consists of … relationships between the measurements of its space

and the events of its past … The city does not tell its past, but contains it
like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of streets’
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
In 2003 we received the proposal to set up a website to be hosted on

the server of Cambridge Journals Online. Our work would serve to
inaugurate a new series of multimedia essays, through which Cambridge
University Press intended to explore some of the possibilities of new
information technologies. From the very outset it was made clear that
the website would have to be linked to an article published in the journal
Urban History: a text in traditional format that would be subject to the
usual peer review controls. Consequently the final multimedia version
had all of the guarantees of theoretical and methodological rigour that
are typical of academic work in the social sciences. This article examines
1
We would like to thank the ‘Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo’ (Research and Development
Directorate) of Galicia’s regional government, the Xunta, which provided financial support for the
two research projects that constituted this work: ‘Construyendo Ciudad, Habitando entre Redes,
Formulando Proyectos de Vida: un Proyecto de Aplicación Basado en una Simulación Informática
vía Web’ (Code PGIDIT02SIN0201PR, in 2002-2005); and ‘Patrimonio de Futuro: Investigación Acción
Participativa en la Ciudad de Ferrol’ (Code PGIDIT04CS0102011PR, in 2004-2007).
121
how our research team, the ‘Taller de Estudios Urbanos’ (Urban Studies
Workshop), came to work over two years on these dual tasks.1 The first
was to undertake research into three centuries of the history of a particular
Spanish city, Ferrol. The second was to create a report in two formats: a
traditional article, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’,2 and a multimedia essay, Ferrol
Urban History, to be hosted by Cambridge Journals Online. In this article
we will discuss some of the lessons we learned from this experience.
Research into urban history often makes use of a large volume of

visual information, whether as maps, photographs or illustrations. But
in the end the author must present a final report that has had most of
these images removed to prevent the costs of editing and distribution
‘on paper’ from skyrocketing. By producing a second version of the report
with its entire graphic content on CD-ROM,3 or redesigning it as a website
and placing it on a server, it is possible to overcome this hurdle. This
option also has a second immediate advantage, allowing us to design
educational materials for distance learning and provide resources so that
other educators may use them directly in lectures or classes.4 This is
something that has helped us to engage with university and secondary
school students, who have been educated in the information society and
are used to working with and communicating via a computer screen.
However, working in a multimedia format is not wholly free from

risks. One of the most important of these is the danger of being carried
away by the technological possibilities to the detriment of academic rigour.
More serious problems are practical questions that have been the scourge
of professionals in the mass media for years, forced into working ‘in
multiformat’, writing articles, carrying out interviews, presenting video
reports and then turning all of this material into online editions. The
pressure involved in this ‘multi-tasking’ does not always fit neatly with
the rigour required when dealing with complex issues requiring careful
analysis. Also, it does not appear logical that in a world dominated by the
principle of specialization, we expect social scientists to develop all of
the skills inherent in the new information technologies, particularly the
2
J.M. Cardesín, ‘A Tale of Two Cities: the Memory of Ferrol between the Navy and the Working Class’,
Urban History, 31 (3), 2004. The electronic edition of the journal is also available at Cambridge
Journals Online.
3
This is the option used by A. Marin, S. Basso & A. Cardin, Dalla citttà moderna alla città
contemporanea. Piani e progetti per Trieste [CD-ROM] (Casamassima Libri, 2002).
4
A. Dumont, ‘New media and distant education : an EU-US perspective’, Information, Communication
and Society, 3 (4), 2000, 546-556.
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digital processing of images, graphic design and computer programming.

The solution to this problem lies in forming interdisciplinary teams with
specialists from different fields. These should be teams designed to work
in the long run, beyond specific projects, as the most complex tasks
require the development of a common language between social scientists
and technicians, negotiating meanings, understanding mutual
expectations, and creating shared working protocols.
In our case, the result of more than a year of meetings was the
organization of a team of this kind, an interdisciplinary body consisting of
professors and researchers from the University of A Coruña, and given the
title of the ‘Taller de Estudios Urbanos’ (Urban Studies Workshop). In the
project considered here, the construction of an urban history website,
three types of specialist were involved. Firstly, those responsible for
producing the contents: historians with the support of sociologists,
anthropologists and architects. Secondly, the computer programmers,
responsible for encoding these contents into computer language and
offering technical solutions so that, for example, the pages could be loaded
quickly. And last, but not least, the graphic designers, responsible for
designing the screen layout with the aim of producing a user-friendly
interface that would favour intuitive surfing. This final aspect is much more
important that it first appears. Hypertext has its own rules, both formal
and conceptual: the linear order used to present written texts or conference
papers is unsuitable for communicating via the Internet, and thus the task
of deciding how material would be presented on the computer screen
was central in determining the effectiveness of the project.5
To those who fear – as well as those who dream – that new information
technologies may end up relegating social scientists to a secondary
position, we would argue that our conclusion is precisely the opposite:
in the teams formed to create multimedia materials, control was in the
hands of the person responsible for designing the contents, in this case
a historian. The solidity of the contents is what distinguishes an academic
project from a product of the ‘Disney factory’, which may have a sparkling
format, but lacks any real substance. Furthermore, when creating
hypertext, a well-structured script is essential for success; more than ever
we are obliged to make our research questions explicit, and to develop a
very clear line of argument.
5
D. Gauntlett, ed., Web Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age (Arnold, London, 2000).
123
In Ferrol Urban History, the history of this city in north-western Spain

over three centuries provides the stage upon which we proposed
analysing a classic question: what potential does town planning have to
mould social relations in a coercive manner, operating simultaneously
on the social praxis and imaginarium. As we described in our essay, the
city of Ferrol was a planned settlement, built by military engineers to
serve the Spanish monarchy during the Age of Enlightenment, housing
its naval base and dockyards. The need to defend the city from enemy
attacks and to discipline workers led to the application of a spatial plan
charged with violence, which segregated naval officers from the working
classes. In the long term, changes in the international economy and
geopolitics, as well as the art of war, all acted to undermine the viability
of the city. These processes were reinforced by changes in political culture
and class alliances, which led to a redefinition of the practices of power.
As a result, by the nineteenth century the naval base and the enclave
economy of Ferrol became obsolete. During the Spanish Civil War,
however, the pro-Franco Navy in the town capitalised on the tradition of
political repression against the working classes to assist in their victory
against the Second Republic. Franco’s dictatorship meant the return of a
segregated and militarised Ferrol, but by the 1980s, Spain’s integration
into the European Union and the transition to democracy again rendered
this model obsolete.
This said, once a question has been defined, and a clear argument set
out for the written paper, a new challenge must be addressed: splitting
up the available material into hundreds of independent texts and images
in order to create a new, interactive website. A glance at the large number
of urban history websites available to users of the H-URBAN discussion
groups, emphasises the wide range of possibilities.6 A brief overview of
some of these sites illustrates the difficulties we confronted and how we
managed gradually to overcome them. For example, The Great Chicago
Fire and the Web of Memory offers an interactive tour of the city of Chicago
at the time of the great fire that destroyed it in 1880.7 This excellent
website is ideal for contemplating issues such as chance and necessity,
the role of catastrophes, and the capacity of societies to react to them.
6
The H-Urban Home Page, http://www.h-net.org/~urban/weblinks/index. H-Urban is a forum for debate,
discussion and dissemination of educational materials in the field of urban history and broader urban
studies. H-Urban is part of H-NET (Humanities and Social Sciences On Line) and is affiliated to the
Urban History Association.
7
Chicago Historical Society & Northwestern University, The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory,
http://www.chicagohs.org/fire.
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Spain
The authors provide a wealth of material that allows visitors to the site to
select their own research options: this was different from our proposal,
which was to design a virtual space something like the layout of a thesis.
Crisis at Fort Sumter, a tour through the chain of events that led to the
outbreak and development of the American Civil War, is another
magnificent website with great possibilities for educational use.8 It focuses
on particular historical moments as crossroads that could have led to
very different outcomes, allowing the visitor to question the principle of
causality so frequently applied in social sciences. This approach was,
however, not really relevant to us, as our aim was to evaluate a thesis,
not to question a historical paradigm. Furthermore, the focus of our
research was space not time. We would therefore have to keep looking.
As an alternative approach we considered thinking about our work as

a kind of ‘urban archaeology’, dedicated to unveiling the history of a city
from its urban memory; a memory that was presented to us through the
city’s ‘hypertextual nature’. In the present-day city historical memory
was fragmented and dispersed: it could be found in oral testimonies, in
written documents, photographs and ruins of buildings. In any street, in
a single building, or an individual room, fragments from very different
historical periods were juxtaposed. The city was presented to us as a
puzzle, and even if the first task of any academic research was to bring
order to this chaos in terms of chronology and significance, then at the
same time, reporting on these investigations in a multimedia format
encouraged us to respect the ‘hypertextual reality’ of the urban memory.
The aim was therefore to offer the city to the viewer in all of the glory
of its immediate experience, to recreate it and offer a virtual visit to the
city. A large number of well-produced studies were available to us at that
time to guide our work, and many more have since been produced.9 At
that time we lacked the technological and financial resources necessary
to develop a 3D reconstruction of the city centre. Fortunately, the 3 Cities
Cultural Project offered a simpler and more realistic model to follow.10
This interactive website developed by the University of Nottingham sought
to compare the cities of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in the first
half of the twentieth century. A simple, effective interface guided visitors
8
R. Latner et al., Crisis at Fort Sumter, http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter.
9
For example, M. Martinet & L. Gallet-Blanchard, Villes en visite virtuelle (Presse de l’Université de
Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, 2000).
10
University of Nottingham, 3 Cities Cultural Project, http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/citysites.
125
to a map of each city, which featured hyperlinks leading to images of

specific buildings. An alternative menu enabled users to access dozens
of short essays about different historical aspects of each city, and also to
recombine the texts according to thematic criteria, making it easier to
compare the different urban areas.
As is usual in both the academic and wider world, personal contacts

with other specialists helped guide us along the right path. Richard
Rodger, on behalf of the journal Urban History and Cambridge University
Press, put us in touch with Philip Ethington, professor at the University
of Southern California, who as an historian and expert in the use of
multimedia technologies, helped us to create and develop the project,
assessing our work throughout its different stages, and tirelessly revising
the text until we arrived at the definitive version. His own website Los
Angeles and the Problem of Urban Historical Knowledge contained
dozens of suggestions, such as the combined use of maps based on GIS
with panoramic photographs and video clips, helping to convey the
sensation of ‘being there’ to the viewer.11 Yet at the same time, what gave
coherence to the vast amount of material available on the website was
the presence of a central argument, discussed as a ‘traditional’ essay with
important theoretical content.12
Finally we found ourselves in the position to be able to design our

own website, Ferrol Urban History. The graphic designers proposed a
screen whose central motif would always be a map, which would gradually
change as we moved in space or time. The map would feature two
navigation bars, one horizontal the other vertical. The horizontal bar
represented a time line offering four options corresponding to the stages
into which we had organized the history of the city: foundation (1726-
1845), consolidation (1845-1936), Franco’s dictatorship (1936-75) and
democracy (1975-2004). The vertical bar offered spatial options, namely
the three scales into which the information was organised: the region of
Ferrol, the city of Ferrol and the basic districts that comprise the city
(seven in the fourth time period). This meant a total of 29 different
screens, based on the same number of maps.
11
P. Ethington, Los Angeles and the problem of urban historical knowledge, http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/
LAS/history/historylab, American Historical Review, December 2000.
12
Philip Ethington is currently working on a new multimedia book: Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles and
the Cartography of Time, 1900-2001 (forthcoming).
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Spain
The information was organised on the basis of linked elements: a total

of 210 images covering all four stages in the history of Ferrol. There were
two ways of accessing the linked objects which were scattered throughout
the maps, either moving the cursor over the maps or clicking on a second
horizontal icon bar, which organized the icons by subject into thirteen
categories: general information, shipbuilding, the new (civil) economy, civil
society, military, mass mobilization, health and social care, religion, views
of streets, monuments, general views, cartography and celebrities. When
any linked element was selected, a window opened with a short text
comment and an image (either a photograph, a design or a chart). Each
text contained a number of hyperlinks, leading to further linked elements.
In the vertical bar, some additional resources were displayed under the
spatial menu. ‘Paper’ led to the text of the article that was published in
Urban History, outlining the results of the investigation in traditional journal
layout. This was available in two formats: an HTML version, and a
downloadable PDF, with a selection of 35 images illustrating the same
text. A ‘Chronology’ option allowed the user to compare the main events
that had taken place throughout the history of Ferrol, Spain and the World
within the same four historical stages employed elsewhere on the website.
And finally, in the vertical bar, another three options were displayed
underneath: ‘Who are we?’ presented the team that had carried out the
research and designed the website; ‘References’ showed a list of the people
and institutions that had contributed to the creation of the website; and
lastly, a ‘Navigation Tour’ guided users through the other resources.
At the end of this process, with the website completed and ready for
distribution, we found ourselves in hearty agreement with the
observations of the anthropologist Barbara Glowczewski, who stated
when reflecting on the work that had led her to produce her magnificent
and justly award-winning CD ROM Dream Trackers,13 on the culture of
an aboriginal group in the Australian desert:
‘The cd-rom allows for a non-linear structure, with the possibility of

navigating through materials [which we have brought together throughout
the investigation] without there being a beginning or an end in their
organization (the opposite of what happens with books), this reticular
method of thought and approximation to knowledge that computers (and
13
B. Glowczewski, Dream Trackers. Yapa art and knowledge of the Australian desert [CD-ROM] (Unesco
Publishing, Paris, 2001).
127
television) have made popular in the western world, appears to me a being

particularly well adapted to the mythical and ritual thought of the desert
Aborigines. The mental cartography of the desert associates all of the place
names … mythical episodes whose heroes are the ancestors … these
episodes and locations are linked through journeys that are described in
the myths, and from the myths that interpret these journeys … the network
logic of the cognitive system of the desert offered in this way an ideal
structure for navigating the digital universe in a reticular manner’.14
We would take these ideas one step further, to suggest that what Barbara
Glowczewski states about the Australian Aborigines may – with all due
caution – be extrapolated in some way to the inhabitants of our cities. As
the sociologist Manuel Castells asserts, human thought, the social memory
as a whole, has a ‘hypertextual nature’.15 Human communication is based
on the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. And the data we
obtain from these senses is organized as an individual memory and as a
social memory in the form of a kind of hypertext, connected in a non-
linear manner through ‘hyperlinks’. From its very beginnings, human
culture has been audiovisual. The humanists of the Renaissance and the
philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment were, however, fascinated by
the possibilities offered by the invention of printing, and the spreading of
reading and writing to the general public: today, when we differentiate
between ‘oral culture’ and ‘written culture’, we show a tendency to reserve
the label of ‘rational’ for knowledge that is structured through verbal
language, and within this, that which is transmitted through writing. We
therefore tend to forget that over the last five centuries audiovisual culture
has continued to be hegemonic in the lives of the vast majority of the
population, both in the private world of the emotions and in the public
world of liturgy, where the Christian churches have constructed great stages
upon which elaborate rituals are performed, bringing together images,
sounds, smells, tastes and sensations. At the same time, secular power,
first throughout the Baroque, and later in the monarchies of the Age of
Enlightenment, and finally with the advent of the nation-state, has
developed its own liturgy based on audiovisual culture in collaboration
with or in opposition to the church, and has become adept at manipulating
14
B. Glowczewski, ‘Négociations pour la fabrication et la distribution d’un CD-ROM: Yapa Art Rituel du
désert central australien’, Le Journal des Anthropologues, 79, 1999, 81-97. The English translation is
our own.
15
M. Castells, ‘The culture of real virtuality: the integration of electronic communication, the end of
the mass audience, and the rise of interactive networks’, in The Information Age: Economy, Society
and Culture, Vol. 1: The Rise of the Network Society (Blackwell, Oxford, 1996), 327-375.
128
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public space where this civil liturgy had to be developed. This was until
the last century, in which the information industry and mass leisure based
on new technologies have once again officially appropriated audiovisual
culture as a support for memory.
If what we say about human culture is correct, then the new multimedia
technologies will help enrich the tools that historians and social scientists
as a whole use to analyze it: they are an exceptionally well-suited
instrument for capturing and ‘visualizing’ the non-linear order in which
the social memory is also organized. Indeed, the new information
technologies offer us a package of tools that appear to be particularly
suited to the new European space of teaching and research that has started
to take shape under the auspices of the ‘Bologna Declaration on the
European Space for Higher Education’. We as historians have started to
recognise its practical implications in the form of the Sixth Framework
Programme, which gives priority to the centralized allocation of financing
to transnational research groups, according to a series of disciplinary and
thematic priorities. The reorganization of the structures within which we
as professionals carry out our research and teaching presents us with a
series of unknowns. However, at least some of the consequences of these
changes may be viewed in a positive light. Over the last century, the
different national historiographies, beyond their obvious achievements,
had a tendency to prioritize a vision centred on analysis at the level of the
nation-state. Furthermore, each national historiography was tied to a series
of traditional relationships with other academic disciplines, and a series
of pre-conceived thematic choices. We are now witnessing the dawn of a
particularly promising stage for sharing perspectives, to recover a scale
of analysis in use before the era of the nation-state.
The aim is therefore to build upon what we already have, to develop

inter-faculty research centres spread throughout different European
nations, which will collaborate in the development of research and
teaching programmes, and to introduce organizations that will help to
establish networks of professional sociability at European level. The tasks
involved in organizing such networks are undoubtedly complex, although
no more so than the complexity required by the classic centralized
institutions concentrated physically in one or more buildings.16 In this
regard the new information technologies are a very useful support, and
16
M. Castells, The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society (Oxford University
Press, 2001).
129
if it was already very difficult to organize an international congress without

having a central website and e-mail system, the organization of these
new networks will require netmeeting, a videoconferencing system and
platforms for cooperative work operating via the Internet, such as BSCW
(Basic Support for Cooperative Work).
The fundamentally public nature of teaching and research structures

in Europe should not see any threat in this partnership, in the collaboration
between academic departments and municipal institutions, or with other
public or private bodies. The implantation of certain organizational
principles may have advantages, such as paying strict attention to timing
in the organization of work, or the search for relevance in research
programmes (something that is also perfectly possible in basic science).
All of this, combined with the use of multimedia applications, may serve to
benefit the inhabitants of our cities, helping them to discover specialized
information about their past. It will also serve to encourage public
participation: after all, what else should be ‘the digital city’ represent?
That said, in order for the new multimedia work teams to remain
focused as they explore the limits of this ‘brave new world’, it is also
crucial that traditional organizations provide the necessary support and
supervision. It is doubtful that the Ferrol Urban History project would
have reached a successful conclusion without close collaboration with a
professional publisher such as Cambridge University Press, whose staff
have given us tireless support in two areas: a rigorous process of copy
editing the texts in English (essential to avoid the ‘lost in translation’
syndrome), and the complex issue of copyright for the more than 200
images we wished to display. This Herculean task was necessary to
establish who owned the rights (and what types of rights!) over each
image, and to gain authorization for their use on the Internet. Indeed, it
was the demands of the publisher that led us to familiarise ourselves
with the new legal guidelines that control this global information space.
Even more important, however, was the guidance offered to our ‘Urban
Studies Workshop’ by professional academic networks. The task of
constructing our website would have been impossible without the support
of Richard Rodger, director of the Centre for Urban History at the
University of Leicester. He encouraged us to develop the website, putting
us in contact with the journal Urban History and Cambridge University
Press, and also monitored the progress of the project over the last two
years, being on hand to offer advice and support at all times. Within this
130
Spain
collaborative framework we were obliged to work under a highly

demanding peer-review system, which guaranteed theoretical and
methodological rigour and the use of a transnational approach. Academic
associations such as the Urban History Group and the European
Association of Urban Historians also provided valuable forums for
demonstrating the website, and discussing its merits with colleagues.
Without this support, designing a personal website and casting it into
hyperspace is like dropping a book into the middle of the Sahara desert
and hoping someone finds it … and then reads it.
131
132
Index
Index
administration, university 3,
agendas, research 2, 101-2, 121-31,
Andrade, Amélia Aguiar ix, 51-63,
annales tradition 90,
antiquity 47,
archaeology 53, 57,
see also urban history
archives and sources 26, 35-6, 48, 89, 97, 117-18, 122,
Bàcksai Vera 88-9,

Barcelona, Centre de Cultura Contemporània 4,
Bologna Declaration 2, 3, 50, 51, 65, 92, 100, 103, 110, 129,
Bolumburu, Beatriz Arízaga ix, 45-50,
Cambridge University Press, see journals

Cambridge Urban History of Britain 4, 17, 37,
Cardesín, José María ix, 121-31,
catastrophes 124,
censorship 101,
Centre for Urban History, Leicester 20, 89, 107, 117-19, 130,
cities, see also under individual countries
American 35
capital 93,
eastern bloc 101,
byzantine 67,
European 42, 72,
Greek 42, 72,
Italian 42-3,
Mediterranean 42, 49, 103,
metropolitan 93,
Muslim cities 42, 57,
Roman, 42, 57,
133
socialist 89,
Spanish American 46,
city monographs 33, 38, 87,
civil society 25,
class 24, 101-2,
communism 88, 99-103
conferences vi, 5, 18, 20, 48, 93-6, 114,
conservation 93,
coursework 91,
curriculum, see also teaching
2, 3, 45-6, 48-9, 91, 99-104, 109,
Diederiks, Herman 31,

disneyfication 123,
Dyos, H.J. 28, 31,
e-learning, see also websites

2-3, 13-17, 20, 28, 63, 109, 122,
Bristol Historical Database 16,
CD-ROM 122,
Eurocities 109
Gloucester Port Books 16,
multi-media essays 121-31,
Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) 13-16,
Westminster Historical Database 16,
elites 36, 53, 56,
emotions 128,
employment, student 101,
enlightenment 124, 128,
Ethington, P. 126, 126n,
European Union 100, 103, 124, 129-30,
initiatives (Erasmus, Socrates, European Social Fund) 4, 88,
see also Bologna Declaration
European Urban History Association (EUHA), v-vi, 2, 4-5, 39, 88, 90, 94, 131,
exhibitions 1, 95,
Favero, Giovanni, x, 79-86,

France 39-44, 90-1,
Ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales 39, 90,
Écoles Normales Supérieures 39,
134
Index
École Pratique des Hautes Études 39,

École d’Architecture 39, 44,
Institut français d’urbanisme 43,
University of
Bordeaux 42,
Clermont-Ferrand 43,
Corte 42,
Dijon 42,
La Rochelle 42,
Le Mans 42,
Lyon (2) 39, 42,
Marne la Vallée 39, 42-3,
Orléans 43,
Paris (1) 42,
Paris (7) 42,
Perpignan 42,
Saint-Quentin 42,
Tours 41,
Versailles 42,
Germany 102-3, 111-15,

University of
Berlin TU 107, 112-15,
Bochum 112,
Darmstadt TU 4, 107, 113,
Bochum 112,
Munster 112,
ghettos 35,
governance 18, 25,
grants and scholarships 88,
Greece, 65-78,
Athènes, faculté d’Architecture de l’Ecole Polytechnique Nationale,
Metsovio of 74, 77,
Athènes, Université national et capodistrienne of, 67, 72,
Ecole polytechnique 66,
University of
Athènes 67-8, 70-3,
Crète 67-9, 72, 76,
Harokopeion 72-3,
Ioannina 67, 69, 70-1,
135
Mer Égée 70-3,

Panteion 65, 71-2,
Péloponnèse 70,
Thessalie 70, 76,
Thessalonique, Aristotle 67, 75-6,
Thrace 70, 77
Gyàni, Gàbor 89,
Histoire de l’Europe urbaine, 39

historiography 26, 37, 39, 43, 53, 57-62, 72, 77, 92, 96, 118, 129,
housing 23, 53,
Hungary 87-97,
Budapest 88, 93,
iconography, images, representation see also urban history and art

33, 48, 57,
identity, national 93, 102
industry 18, 126,
information technology – see e-learning
institutional base,
Britain 11-12, 25,
France 39-40
Greece 67-70
Hungary 88-92,
Italy 79-83,
Netherlands 33-6,
Poland 99-101,
Portugal 52-57
Spain 45-8,
Sweden 105-110,
institutions, non-academic 87-9,
interdisciplinary 19, 33, 48-9, 79-83, 129,
international exchanges 87-8, 90, 96-7,
interviews 28,
Ireland 16,
Dublin 4, 107,
Italy 79-86,
Naples 79,
Rome 79,
Turin 79,
Venice 79,
136
Index
Jansen, Harry 32,

journals vi, 94-5, 97, 121, 126, 130,
Cambridge Journals Online 121-22,
Urban History 121 ,126, 130,
Histoire Urbaine 39,
Hungary 94-5, 97,
jurisdictions 5
Kooij, Pim x,
Kotea, Marianthi x, 65-78,
labour 32, 35, 49,

Lampard, Eric 32,
Lanaro, Paola x, 79-86,
Lepetit, Bernard 90,
LMD 40,
MA courses, 26, see also teaching,

Manikowska, Halina xi, 99-104,
maps, 122-24, 127,
markets 5,
Marques, Oliveira,52
Marxism 101-2,
media 1,
memory see also interviews, testimony
56, 62, 125, 127-29,
Menjot, Denis xi, 1-9, 39-44,
Middle East 1,
migration 5, 35-7
military 124, 126,
modernity 32-3, 47,
Moret, Frédéric xi, 39-44,
multi-cultural 95,
multi-media, see e-learning
national associations, urban history 5,

Dutch Association for Urban History 31,
Hungary Istvan Hajnal Association 96,
Italian Urban History Association (AISU), 79, 81, 84,
Polish Committee for Historical Sciences 103
Swedish Confederation of Towns 107,
137
Société Française d’Histoire Urbaine, 39

UK, Pre-Modern Towns 18, 20,
UK, Urban History Group 18, 20, 131,
Netherlands, 31-8,
Amsterdam 36,
Leiden 4, 31, 37, 107,
Nijmegen 32,
Utrecht 36,
networks, research, see also research teams
48, 87, 119, 129-30,
networks, teaching 3-4, 27, 36, 55, 106-8, 113-14,
new historical scholarship 45, 88,
Nilsson, Lars xii, 105-110,
North America 25,
Penedo, Manuel G. xii, 121-31,

perceptions 25,
photography 93, 122, 125,
planning history, see urban history, town planning
Poland 93, 99-104,
Warsaw 93, 100, 103,
policy, see also institutional base
educational 11-12, 14, 19,
public 2, 5, 6, 11, 46, 130,
political history 41, 52, 60, 87,
political science 2, 110, 124,
polytechnic courses 79,
see also polytechnic universities
population, density 1, 18,
Portugal 51-63,
University of
Coimbra 52-5, 55-7, 59-60,
Évora 55,
Lisbonne, Nouvelle 51-57, 59,
Minho-Braga 52, 56,
Porto 52- 55, 59,
power, authority 5, 18, 124,
Prague 93,
private interests 2
privileges 5,
138
Index
processes, urban 22,

public policy 2, 5, 6, 11, 130,
services 35,
space 129,
sphere 5,
publishing 4, see also e-learning, journals
Atlas des villes de France 39,
Histoire de l’Europe urbaine, 39
Cambridge Urban History of Britain 4, 17, 37,
Readers in Urban History 12,
quantitative approach, 32-3, 87,

questionnaire 2, 7-9, 33, 79, 85-6, 117,
raw materials 32,

regeneration, urban 2,
regional history, see also town-country
18, 35-7, 93, 126,
Reif, Heinz xii, 111-15,
religion, 126,
representations 25,
research community 119,
cooperation 48, 87, 129-30,
councils
High Council for Scientific Research (Spain) 48,
methods 101, 117-19,
research teams, see also workshops
47-8, 101, 112, 123, 129-130,
training 4, 26-7, 45, 47, 89, 114, 117-19,
resources 5, 89,
Ribeiro, Orlando, 61
risks, 122,
Rodger, Richard xiii, 1-9, 11-29, 35, 126, 130,
Sapounaki-Dracaki, Lydia xiii, 65-78,

social conflict 48,
structure, urban 24,
sociology, 57, 73
sources 26, 35-6, 48, 53, 78, 89, 117-18, 122,
Sowina, Urszula xiii, 99-104
139
Spain 45-50, 124, 127,

Civil War 124,
Polytechnic University of Cataluña 48, 50,
University of
Coruña, University of A 123,
Ferrol, 121-28,
state control 87,
student experience 117-19,
summer school 4,
surrounding walls, 53
Sweden 105-110,
Stockholm 4,
Institute for Urban History 107,
syllabus 49, 80, 102,
symbols 5,
Szívós, Erika xiv, 87-97,
teaching
cooperation 3-4, 27, 36, 106-8, 113-14, 128-30,
course structure and delivery 26, 27n, 32-5, 36, 40-3, 52-7, 67-77,
79-83, 91-2, 99-100, 102-3, 105-6, 111-15, 128-30,
courses 21-7, 40-1, 81-2, 128-30,
materials 126-30,
networks 3-4, 27, 36, 55, 57-60, 106-8, 113-14,
programme,
undergraduate 34, 40-3, 53-7, 66-77, 81-2, 89, 92, 94, 105-
6, 111-13, 117-18, 129,
graduate 36-7, 40-43, 45, 48-9, 50, 52-57, 65-77, 81-2, 89,
92-3, 105-6, 111, 113-15, 129,
technologies, 35-6, 129, see also e-learning
testimony, oral history 125, 128,
textbooks 83,
theoretical approaches, 25-6, 37, 80, 90, 103, 110, 117-18, 121, 123, 126, 131,
Tòth, Zoltàn 88,
town planning, training 104,
town-country relations 35, 37, 42-43, 46-7,
Townsend, Claire xiv, 117-19,
Training, see research training
civil servants 103-4,
140
Index
United Kingdom,11-29,
Economic and Social Research Council 26,
Institute of Historical Research 26,
Leicester, Centre for Urban History, 20, 26, 89, 107, 117-19, 130,
King’s College London 26,
Universities, 11-29,
United Nations 1,
United States of America 31,
Chicago 124, 124n, 125,
cities 71-2,
Civil War 125,
Los Angeles 125
New York 113-14, 125,
urban crisis 1,
culture 34, 37,
development 5,
form 47,
urban history and
anthropology 71-3, 91-2, 100, 118, 123,
archaeology 6, 13, 36, 41, 49, 53, 56, 63, 79-80, 100, 125,
art history, architecture 3, 5, 34, 47, 50, 58, 60, 62, 75, 79-80, 93,
95, 100, 105, 115,
computing 3, 123-26,
cultural history 19, 27, 32-3, 35-6, 42, 49, 60, 69, 87, 102, 114,
ecology 3,
economic history 67-8, 88, 91, 105
economics 3, 80-1, 100, 124, 126,
engineering 80,
environmental history 2, 22, 42-3, 46, 49, 103, 118,
ethnology 113,
geography 3, 13, 27, 32, 42, 46-7, 50, 72, 80, 110, 113,
heritage 2, 49, 90, 95,
historical demography 91,
industrialisation 22, 25,
landscape studies 3, 49, 80-1,
law 42, 52-3, 55, 80-1, 100,
linguistics 36,
local history 28, 31, 46, 48, 56, 66-9, 87,
medical history 24,
planning 3, 22-3, 42-3, 45, 47-9, 57, 61, 67-8, 91, 93, 95, 100,
141
social history 3, 13, 18, 32, 41, 46, 56, 60, 67-8, 80, 91, 93,
social sciences, 12, 18, 70-4, 88, 100-1, 117-18. 121-22, 125, 129,
sociology 3, 93, 100, 110, 113, 118, 123,
urban history associations, see EUHA, national associations
urban history institutes, see Centre for Urban History (Leicester), Institute
for Urban History (Stockholm)
urban history,
comparative 4, 24-5, 42, 54, 56, 70-2, 89, 112,
definition 28, 77, 119,
inter-disciplinary 69, 74, 77, 119, 123, 130,
multi-disciplinary 3, 5, 10, 75, 110,
new 32,
quantitative 32-3, 87,
thematic 41, 47, 106, 130,
networks, see networks
systems 32, 34,
variable 32,
urbanisation 31, 35, 37, 56, 59, 67, 71-74, 118,
Valdivieso Isabel del Val xiv, 45-50,

Vienna 93,
walks, urban 95,
war 124, 126,
Websites, see also e-learning
H-URBAN 124,
educational 124n, 125n, 126, 127,
university 63
workshop,
Coruña, Urban Studies Workshop 121-3, 130,
Hungary, Atelier French Hungarian Workshop for the Social
Sciences 89,
Zagreb 93,
142
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Teaching Urban History in Europe/l'Enseignement de l'Histoire Urbaine en

Book · February 2006

Richard Rodger Denis Menjot

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Lars Nilsson, President of the European Urban History Association

This book is an important project for the European Urban History

Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki, Past-President, European Urban History

Cover illustration: Manchester from a steel engraving by T. Higham, drawn

ESSAYS IN URBAN HISTORY

THE CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY

Lars Nilsson, President of the European Urban History Association

This book is an important project for the European Urban History

Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki, Past-President, European Urban History

Cover illustration: Manchester from a steel engraving by T. Higham, drawn

ESSAYS IN URBAN HISTORY

Penelope Lane and Jon Stobart (eds)

E. T. Jones, J. Laughton and P. Clark

P. Clark and J. Hosking,

Rionach Ni Neill (ed)

Nick Jewson (ed)

Yvonne Rooney and Henrietta O'Connor

Peter Clark and Penelope Corfield (eds)

Barry Haynes and P. Clark

For information about CUH staff and PhD research projects,

To order publications listed above contact:

Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester

Penelope Lane and Jon Stobart (eds)

E. T. Jones, J. Laughton and P. Clark

P. Clark and J. Hosking,

Rionach Ni Neill (ed)

Nick Jewson (ed)

Yvonne Rooney and Henrietta O'Connor

Peter Clark and Penelope Corfield (eds)

Barry Haynes and P. Clark

For information about CUH staff and PhD research projects,

To order publications listed above contact:

L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE L’HISTOIRE URBAINE

Centre for Urban History

1 Introduction: Studying an Urban World 1

Reactions and Opportunities

14 The role of multimedia websites in teaching

The Editors wish to record their thanks to three individuals in the

The Association was established in 1989 with the support of European

International Committee of the European Urban History Association

Maurice Aymard (Paris) Marc Boone (Ghent)

In some countries there are also national associations of urban history

Figure 2.1 Student Texts: Readers in Urban History

Figure 2.2 On Line and On Screen: TLTP Teaching Materials

Figure 2.3 Numbers Attending Urban History Group

Table 8.1 Location and title of courses

Table 8.2 Faculties and titles of courses

Table 8.3 Faculties and the academic status of teachers

Table 8.4 Academic status of teachers and course level

Table 8.5 Chronological scope of course contents

Table 8.6 Textbooks chosen for more than one course

Amélia Aguiar Andrade is Assistant Professor and Senior Lecturer in

Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History

José María Cardesín is Professor of the History of Social Movements

Marianthi Kotea is Lecturer, in the Department of Sociology, Panteion

Pim Kooij is Professor in Economic and Social History at Groningen