Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places

Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places
Author: Boudien de Vries
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351951106

In recent years the concept of 'civil society' has become central to the historian's understanding of class, cultural and political power in the nineteenth-century town and city. Increasingly clubs and voluntary societies have been regarded as an important step in the formation of formal political parties, particularly for the working and middle classes. The result of this is the assertion that the more associations existing in a particular society, the deeper democracy becomes entrenched. In order to test this hypothesis, this volume brings together essays by an international group of urban historians who examine the construction of civil society from associational activity in the urban place. From their studies, it soon becomes clear that such simple propositions do not adequately reflect the dynamics of nineteenth-century urban society and politics. Urban associations were ideological in purpose and deliberately discriminatory and as such set the boundaries of civil society. Thus competing and segmented associations were not only an indication of pluralism and strength, but also highlighted a fundamental weakness when faced down by the interests of the state. Through a wide array of urban associations in a broad range of settings, comprising Austria and Bratislava, France and Italy, the Netherlands, Austro-Hungary, England, Scotland and the US, this volume reflects on the construction of class, nation and culture in the associations of the nineteenth-century urban place. In so doing it shows that a deep and interlocking civil society does not automatically lead to a rise in democratic activity. Expansion of the networks of urban association could equally result in greater subdivision and to the fragmentation and isolation of certain groups. Partition as much as coherence is our understanding of civil society and associations in the nineteenth-century urban place.

Glasgow

Glasgow
Author: Irene Maver
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474470793

This new and extensively illustrated history explores the reality behind stereotypical views of Glasgow.

Britain and Transnational Progressivism

Britain and Transnational Progressivism
Author: D. Gutzke
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0230614973

This collection of essaysexplores how Progressivism was the historical catalyst for reforms across the social and political spectrum in Britain for over half a century.

Portable Utopia

Portable Utopia
Author: Bernard Aspinwall
Publisher: [Aberdeen] : Aberdeen University Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 1984
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: