Publisher's Synopsis
The idea for this book was first discussed at the 8th International Conference on Urban History organised by the European Urban History Association in Stockholm in 2006. Three of the chapters started as papers there in a session entitled 'Animals in the City' and five others are by participants.
Animated Cities is a book that builds upon a recent surge of interest among historians about animals in the urban context. It follows a four-fold agenda. First, the opening chapters look at working and productive animals that lived and died in nineteenth-century cities such as London, Edinburgh and Paris. The purpose overall is to argue that their presence yields insights into evolving contemporary understandings of the category "urban" and what made a good city. A discussion of the recycling of animal manure and body parts forms one context for this, with commentaries about the purification of the urban environment and the problems associated with diseased meat. Second, there is a consideration of nineteenth-century animal spectacles, which influenced contemporary interpretations of the urban experience, using London Zoo as an example. Third, the theme of contested animal spaces in the city is explored further with regard to back-yard chickens in suburban Australia in the period 1890-1990. In one Melbourne suburb in the late nineteenth century as many as two-thirds of households kept these 'chooks' but later this proportion fell steadily under the pressure of regulation and social change. Finally, there is a chapter on dog-walking in Victorian and Edwardian London. This throws light of the problem of the public companion animal and its role in changing attitudes to public space.
Animated Cities makes an important contribution to animal studies. It will be of interest to urban historians, historical geographers, social and economic historians, cultural historians, and historians of policy and planning. The considerability of animals in urban settings is now firmly established and here were have a number of valuable case studies that illustrate some of the perspectives that may be adopted.
