The Unruly City

In the late eighteenth century, New York and Paris were homes to revolution. London also saw unrest. Neil Dickson narrates this work with the energy of those times. Mark Rapport links specific sites in those cities to their political movements. The Common, where the Liberty Pole stood, was a rallying point for the Sons of Liberty in New York, as the Bastille prison was to those leading the French Revolution. Coffeehouses and neighborhoods also played roles. Dickson's delivery ensures that the the political figures quoted become like characters in a fascinating story. Patterns of anger and polarization emerge that may remind listeners of today's fractious discourse. J.A.S. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Starred review from March 20, 2017
Rapport (1848: Year of Revolution), professor of history at the University of Glasgow, examines the political geography of dissent and revolution in three key Western cities, Paris, London, and New York, in the years 1763–1795. Of the three, Paris experienced the most extreme internal upheaval, and Rapport’s chapters on the French metropolis are his best. He shows, for example how certain neighborhoods, such as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, became centers of political ferment and action. Rapport’s choice of New York is questionable, given that Boston was so significant in the American Revolution and New York was occupied by British troops from late 1776 to 1783. However, he shares insight on the nature of the popular uprising against the 1765 Stamp Act, a revolt against both the British and the city’s elites, and notes that, at the time of the Revolution, one-fifth of New York households “kept at least one slave.” Concerning London, Rapport shows that political activity was basically civil, excepting six days of anti-Catholic rioting in June 1780, and characterized as much by a “spontaneous tide of popular conservatism” in the city’s streets, coffee houses, and pubs as it was by reformist agitation. 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.