The Making of Urban America - Raymond A. Mohl

The process by which a group of small colonial settlements in an untamed wilderness grew into a highly industrialized and urbanized nation is one of the central and most important themes of American history. The updated Making of Urban America provides a superb collection of essays for students and teachers on the many facets of urban development through history. This detailed and well-researched study traces urban development from the preindustrial city to the twentieth-century city. With emphasis on the social, economic, political, commercial, and cultural aspects of urban history, these essays illustrate the growth and change that brought about modern-day urban life. In his extensive historiographical analysis of urban America, Professor Raymond Mohl introduces the reader to current literature and perspectives on urban history. Dynamic topics such as technology, immigration and ethnicity, suburbanization, sunbelt cities, urban political history, and planning and housing are examined. The Making of Urban America is the only reader available covering all of U.S. urban history and includes the most recent interpretive scholarship on the subject.

A testament to the diversity of topics, theories, and researchers who find a home in the field of urban history today. The essays written by Mohl show how the research of historians and other urbanists over the last forty years can flow together to form a coherent story of America's development and urbanization.
Georgina Hickey, Georgia Southern University

Highly recommended for any involved in urban studies programs at the college level.
Midwest Book Review