The construction of an urban past: narrative and system in urban history

382 Pages·2001·15.175 MB·English

by  Ebrary, Inc.;De Jong, Feike;Jansen, Harry

The Construction of an Urban Past

The Construction of an Urban Past
Narrative and System in Urban History
Harry Jansen
Translated by
Feike de Jong
Oxford•New York
First published in 2001 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
150 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JJ, UK
838 Broadway, Third Floor, New York, NY 10003-4812, USA
© Harry Jansen 2001
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 185973437 5(Cloth)
Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants.
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
PartI Systems Theory and Urban Historiography
1 Introduction 3
2 Wrestling with the Angle: On Problems of Definition in
Urban Historiography 31
PartII Relatively-Closed and Half-Open Systems
3 Relatively-Closed Systems and a World Full of Black Boxes 63
4 Half-Open and Open Systems, Order and Chaos 91
PartIII Relatively-Closed System Constructions in
Urban Historiography
5 Cites as Quasi-personages: The Long-Term Studies 117
6 Uncovering an Urban Biography: Closed-System
Constructions of Individual Cities 147
PartIV Half-Open System Constructions in Urban
Historiography
7 Babushkas of City Systems: Macro Levels in Long-Term
Urban Studies 171
8 Uncovering the Micro-Level: Sub-system Constructions in
Urban Historiography 203
–v–
Contents
PartV Time and Temporal Arrangement
9 Time and Entities: Subjectifying and Objectifying
Conceptions 237
10 Time and (Dis)Continuity: Arrangements of Time 275
11 Conclusion 311
Bibliography 325
Subject Index 353
Name Index 371
–vi–
Acknowledgements
First, I must acknowledge a debt to NWO, the Dutch Organisation of
Scientific Research and the Research Institute of the Faculty of Arts of
the University of Nijmegen for funding this book. Second, I am pleased
to express my thanks to Prof. Jan de Vries of Berkeley University of
California for his help in getting the book published. Third, I owe a
particular debt to David Phelps, for scrutinizing the book and to the two
translators Robert Bland (second chapter) and Feike de Jong. Especial
thanks go to Seke Drost for correcting the bibliography, to Noortje and
Mark van ‘t Nedereind for their help with the indexes and to Maartje
Wolff and Angelique Janssens for their mental and practical support. Last
but not least I want to express my appreciation to Berg publishers for
their patience and help.
Nijmegen, July, 2001
Harry Jansen
–vii–

Part I
Systems Theory and
Urban Historiography
‘One wonders sometimes if science will grind to a stop in an assemblage
of walled-in-hermits, each mumbling to himself words in a private language
that only he can understand.’ K. L. Boulding, ‘General Systems Theory –
The Skeleton of Science’, in: Management Science 2 (1956) 198.
Systems Theory and Urban Historiography
–2–