The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History

This pioneering comparative work by fifty leading scholars drawn from a range of disciplines offers the first detailed comparative study of urban development fromancient times to the present day. The Handbook explores not only the main trends in the growth of cities & towns across the world - in Asia & the Middle East, Europe, Africa, & the Americas - & the different types of cities from great metropolitan centres to suburbs, colonial cities, & market towns, but also many of the essential themes in the making & remaking of the urban world: the role of power, economic development, migration, social inequality, environmental challenge & the urban response, religion & representation, cinema, & urban creativity. 

Split into three parts covering Ancient cities, the medieval & early modern period, & the modern & contemporary era, it begins with an introduction by the editor identifying the importance & challenges of research on cities in world history as well as the crucial outlines of urban development since the earliest cities in ancient Mesopotamia to the present.