1. Introduction; 2. Inventing British cities in Africa; 3. More Babylon than Birmingham?; 4. Selling sunlit cities; 5. Bitter cries and black Baudelaires; 6. Remembrance of things past.
A pioneering account of how South Africa's three leading cities were fashioned, experienced, promoted and perceived.
Vivian Bickford-Smith is Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and Visiting Fellow in the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London.
'The Emergence of the South African Metropolis breaks new ground in
writing the cultural history of South Africa's major conurbations.
It is especially innovative in discussion of the diverse Anglophone
communities that dominated the cities in their early years and
Bickford-Smith is equally interesting on African urban culture.'
William Beinart, University of Oxford
'In this elegant study of how South African cities have been
imagined, Bickford-Smith reveals a cacophonous urban landscape of
conflict, hope, and possibility not yet overwhelmed by racial
ordering.' James R. Brennan, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign
'A great strength of this book is that it is enriched throughout by
a serious consideration of the role of art, literature, poetry,
architecture, and cinema in creating and/or mediating this
difficult world … It also provides an enlightening and
sophisticated introduction to an important body of history,
analysis, and literature for those not in South African or African
studies.' Belinda Bozzoli, The American Historical Review
'… this work is a real contribution not only to the historical
literature on South Africa, but also to that on the modern city. It
is an original, incisive and impressively erudite account of the
politics of discursive struggles around urbanism and urbanization.'
Jonathan Hyslop, Global Urban History
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