Nights in the Big City

Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930 - Second Edition

Joachim Schlör

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781780236193
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This elegantly written book describes the evolving perception and experience of the night in three great European cities: Paris, Berlin, and London. As Joachim Schlör shows, the lighting up of the European city by gas and electricity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought about a new relationship with the night for both those who toiled at work and those who caroused in restaurants, pubs, and cafes. Nights in the Big City explores this change and offers a stirring portrait of the secrets and mysteries a city can hold when the sun goes down.Sifting through countless police and church archives alongside first-hand accounts, Schlör sets out on his own explorations with a head full of histories, exploring the boulevards and side-streets of these three great capitals. Illustrated with haunting and evocative photographs by, among others, Bill Brandt and André Kertész, and filled with contemporary literary references, Nights in the Big City is a milestone in the cultural history of the city.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1 Contradictory Reports from Night in the Big City
• 2 A Beginning: Big City Nights around 1840
• Digression: In a New Light
• 3 Night and Security
• 4 Night and Morality
• 5 Night-walking
• 6 An End: Big City Nights around 1930
• REFERENCES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INDEX