The City and the Process of Transition from Early Modern Times to the Present

In 2017, during a conference held at the Historical Institute of the University of Wrocław, Poland, an international group of early career researchers and PhD students had the opportunity to discuss the process of transition in cities from early modern times to the present day. This book, arising from the discussions of that meeting, focuses on the social, economic, political and structural transformations of some cities in Europe, the Near East and Asia from the seventeenth century up to the contemporary era. The first part of the text, entitled “Facing the Other: Perception, Relations, (Co)existence” explores the attitudes of the locals towards newcomers to a city, as well as the coexistence of different social, ethnic, religious and cultural groups, and their adaptation, assimilation, integration, and rejection. The second part “The Evolution of the Urban Space” concentrates on municipal and central authorities’ policies that, together with structural transformations in the urban tissue, had a direct impact on public space and the everyday life of the city dwellers. The volume will serve to contribute to the international discussion on the complexity of progressive urbanisation and its consequences from the early modern period onwards.

Magdalena Gibiec is a PhD student of History at the University of Wrocaw, Poland. Currently she is working on the project entitled Behind the Scenes of the Functioning of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists on Emigration in the Light of Correspondence (1929-1938). Her research interests focus on the development of nationalism in Europe during the interwar period, formation of national identity, and national policy towards ethnic minorities in the Second Polish Republic. Dorota Winiewska is a PhD candidate at the University of Wrocaw, Poland, and the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris Saclay, France. She is conducting a research project titled Women in Politics in France and Poland in the Second Half of the 18th Century: A Comparative Study of Literary Salons and Correspondences, and has a strong interest in womens studies, social history, and the role of elites during the Enlightenment. Leszek Zitkowski is a Professor of Early Modern History at the Historical Institute of the University of Wrocaw, Poland. He specialises in the history of Silesia and his research primarily concerns the Jewish population in this region. He has published numerous books, including The History of Jews in Wrocaw (2010), as well as a number of chapters in edited volumes. He has also contributed more than 120 articles to Wrocaws Encyclopaedia.