"What is Urban History?"

Harvard FAS

More and more people live in cities, many of them in Asia. Since 1950 the world’s urban share has more than doubled, and over half of today’s megacities are Asian. As part of the History 97 seminars, History 97H runs as an apprentice workshop and explores how historians understand cities, with a focus on modern Asia. Our working example is my book manuscript on the communist takeovers of North Vietnamese cities in the 1950s. At each stage, we will examine one step of historical research; you…