Flammable Cities: Urban Conflagration and the Making of the Modern World

In most cities today, fire has been reduced to a sporadic and isolated threat. But throughout history the constant risk of fire has left a deep and lasting imprint on almost every dimension of urban society. This volume, the first truly global study of urban conflagration, shows how fire has shaped cities throughout the modern world, from Europe to the imperial colonies, major trade entrep\u00f4ts, and non-European capitals, right up to such present-day megacities as Lagos and Jakarta. Urban fire may hinder commerce or even spur it; it may break down or reinforce barriers of race, class, and ethnicity; it may serve as a pretext for state violence or provide an opportunity for displays of state benevolence. As this volume demonstrates, the many and varied attempts to master, marginalize, or manipulate fire can turn a natural and human hazard into a highly useful social and political tool.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Flammable Cities      Part 1: Cities as Fire Regimes 1 Jan van der Heyden and the Origins of Modern Firefighting Art and Technology in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam        Susan Donahue Kuretsky 2 Governance, Arson, and Firefighting in Edo, 1600–1868        Jordan Sand and Steve Wills 3 Taming Fire in Valpara\u00edso, Chile, 1840s–1870s        Samuel J. Martland 4 The Burning of a Modern City? Istanbul as Perceived by the Agents of the Sun Fire Office, 1865–1870        Cornel Zwierlein 5 Imperial Russia's Urban Fire Regimes, 1700–1905            Cathy A. Frierson 6 Fighting Fires (or Not) in Porfirian Mexico        Amy S. Greenberg   Part 2: Fire as Risk and as a Catalyst of Change 7 The Great Fire of Lisbon, 1755        Mark Molesky 8 A Tale of Two Cities: The Pyro-seismic Morphology of Nineteenth-Century Manila        Greg Bankoff 9 Fire and Urban Morphogenesis: Patterns of Destruction and Reconstruction in Nineteenth-Century Montreal            Jason Gilliland 10 The Great Fire of Hamburg 1842: From Catastrophe to Reform        Dirk Schubert 11 Did the Fire Insurance Industry Help Reduce Urban Fires in the United States in the Nineteenth Century?        Sara E. Wermiel 12 Inflaming the Fears of Theater-Goers: How Fires Shaped the Public Sphere in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1880–1910            Kristen McCleary 13 Points of Origin: The Social Impact of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire        Andrea Rees Davies   Part 3: The Politics of Fire 14 The Politics of Singapore's Fire Narrative        Nancy H. Kwak 15 The Beirut Central District on Fire: Firefighting in a Divided City with Shifting Frontlines, 1975–1976        Sofia Toufic Shwayri 16 Who Burned Cleveland, Ohio? The Forgotten Fires of the 1970s        Daniel Kerr 17 \u0022There is More to This Fire Than Meets the Eye\u0022: Anatomy of Fire Outbreaks in Lagos, Nigeria, 1980–2008        Ayodeji Olukoju 18 Fires, Urban Environments, and Politics in Contemporary Jakarta        J\u00e9r\u00f4me Tadi\u00e9   Afterword: Fire on the Fringe            Stephen J. Pyne   Index

About the Author :
Greg Bankoff is professor of history at the University of Hull, UK. Uwe Lübken is 'Disaster Migration' project director, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich. Jordan Sand is associate professor of Japanese history and culture at Georgetown University.

Review :
"A remarkably robust survey of cultures, cities, and histories that affirms the universality of fire's impact within the urban setting."--Stephen J. Pyne "How do people in an urban environment deal with the problem of fire? The essays in this book show how the answers vary depending on economic conditions, power structures, climate, and culture. An excellent collection."--Johan Goudsblom, author of Fire and Civilization