-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Sace Elder, Emotional Cities: Debates on Urban Change in Berlin and Cairo, 1860–1910, German History, Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2018, Pages 458–460, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghy017
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
In this study of Berlin and Cairo, Joseph Ben Prestel offers an approach to comparative urban history that avoids normative Eurocentric assumptions about urbanization and modernity. Rather than examining the cities themselves, he instead focuses on the emotional experiences of those who lived in cities. Building on the recent notion of ‘inner urbanization’ (p. 16), Prestel employs Monique Scheer’s concept of ‘emotional practices’ (p. 13) to understand how the objective and subjective experiences of living in the city informed one another. Prestel assumes that as forms of social practice, ‘emotions…bridge the social, the body, and the mind’ (p. 14). In this way, Prestel seeks to understand ‘the adoption of urban change rather than its origins’ (p. 17). He draws on a rich source base of professional and popular publications and official records in both German and Arabic to construct a convincing case for similar developments in the two capital cities. These developments, he argues, resulted not from common material conditions of urbanity, but rather from a shared conviction that urban life had profound effects on the feelings of urban dwellers.
