The Unruly City, Mike Rapport
The Unruly City, Mike Rapport
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

The Unruly City
London, Paris, and New York in the Age of Revolution

Author: Mike Rapport

Narrator: Neil Dickson

Unabridged: 15 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 05/02/2017

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

A lauded expert on European history paints a vivid picture of Paris, London, and New York during the Age of Revolutions, exploring how each city fostered or suppressed political uprisings within its boundaries

In The Unruly City, historian Mike Rapport offers a vivid history of three intertwined cities toward the end of the eighteenth century-Paris, London, and New York-all in the midst of political chaos and revolution. From the British occupation of New York during the Revolutionary War, to agitation for democracy in London and popular uprisings, and ultimately regicide in Paris, Rapport explores the relationship between city and revolution, asking why some cities engender upheaval and some suppress it.

Why did Paris experience a devastating revolution while London avoided one? And how did American independence ignite activism in cities across the Atlantic? Rapport takes readers from the politically charged taverns and coffeehouses on Fleet Street, through a sea battle between the British and French in the New York Harbor, to the scaffold during the Terror in Paris.

The Unruly City shows how the cities themselves became protagonists in the great drama of revolution.

About Mike Rapport

Michael Rapport is a professor of history at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The author of numerous books, Rapport lives in Stirling, Scotland.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ray on February 25, 2020

This book has opened my eyes to the power which urban location and geography had on the great revolutions in London, New York and Paris from around 1760-1795. The proximity of neighborhoods of different classes of citizens had profound effects in New York and Paris. The author contends that London,......more

Goodreads review by Bill on August 02, 2017

Mike Rapport, author of “1848: Year of Revolution’’ delivers a wonderfully constructed examination of three cultural centers of the world: New York, Paris, and London, during the 18th century, each in its own way struggling for democracy. Newspapers and coffee houses in London, free press in Paris in......more

Goodreads review by Sean on April 30, 2020

This book was a little high brow for what I normally read. I nearly stopped reading it after the first half hour or so. But then I decided to give it a go. I walk to work because of the coronavirus and I have to listen to something, so you know. I've been listening to quite a bit of history lately (s......more

Goodreads review by Diane on August 23, 2021

This book looks at London, Paris, and New York during the American and French revolutions during the late 18th century. It is an interesting approach, but I found the book a little hard to follow. The author describes in great detail how the cities looked at the time, but obviously there are no phot......more


Quotes

"A refreshingly vibrant narrative. At times, [Rapport's] political study could almost double as a travelogue."
New York Times Book Review

"Highly readable.... [Rapport] has an excellent eye for the arresting anecdote or apt quotation.... He also excels at literary portraiture, painting quick but vivid sketches of well-known figures from Mary Wollstonecraft to Maximilien Robespierre."—Wall Street Journal

[Rapport] creates a richly textured picture of 18th-century urban life, and how it varied among the three cities... in [his] hands, the cities become players in the story, not simply backdrops for the turmoil of the Age of Revolutions."—Shelf Awareness

"[An] eye-opening comparative history.... Rapport's in-depth research into these three cities at war is significant, the similarities and differences making the story all the more fascinating."—Kirkus Reviews

"Rapport has combined academic scholarship with a well-paced, engaging writing style to produce an exceptional work of comparative late-18th-century political and urban history."—Publishers Weekly, starred review