From cotton and smoke : Łódź--industrial city and discourses of asynchronous modernity 1897-1994
Agata Zysiak (Author), Kamil Śmiechowski (Author), Kamil Piskała (Author), Wiktor Marzec (Author), Kaja Kaźmierska (Author), Jacek Burski (Author)
This book considers Łódź as the capital of the Polish nineteenth century industry, and discusses the history of this former textile hub, which now finds itself in central Poland, as one of the cities struggling with modern change in Eastern Europe. The authors boldly challenge the romantic and noble-based Polish cultural imaginary, offering instead a revolutionary path to understanding confrontation with modernity in the region. The book examines local press debates during four pivotal periods, each of which stimulated self-reflection on the idea of the modern city: Rapid industrial growth in the tsarist borderlands; State crafting after WWI; Socialist restructuring after 1945; Transition and deindustrialization after 1989. Together these insights constitute a multifaceted portrait of twentieth-century urban experience beyond the metropolis, in different historical contexts. This innovative, interdisciplinary work deftly integrates urban and cultural history, historical sociology and discourse research. It will be of great value to Polish and Jewish studies specialists, as well as those in the field of Eastern European and Slavic studies. The book also addresses core intellectual debates within urban studies, modernity studies, and historical discourse analysis worldwide. -- Provided by publisher
Print Book, English, 2018
First edition View all formats and editions
Łódź University Press ; Jagiellonian University Press, Łódź, Kraków, 2018
History
308 pages : illustrations (some color), color map ; 24 cm
9788381421027, 9788381421034, 9788323344889, 9788323398486, 8381421020, 8381421039, 8323344884, 8323398488
1078881256
Acknowledgments
List of tables
List of illustrations
Introduction : There is a city in Europe
Translocal modernity
Printed modernity
Journey through a century
The structure and content of the modern discourse
The beginnings : entrance to the industrial world 1897-1914 : The promised land in the mud
From othering to condemnation
Re-imaging the city
Harmonious modernity and urban self-assertion
The dream of a proper infrastructure
Calling for institutions
Inventing welfare
Educating the masses
Envisioning urban citizenship
Ethnicizing the economy
Forging modernity : conclusion
The interwar : democratic politics and modern city between two world wars 1918-1923 : The decline of the "Polish Manchester"
The years of war : the economic collapse and political liberalization
Democratic politics and the press in the independent state
From class warfare to the modernization program
Visions of a metropolis and municipal socialism
Rhetorical shifts
Against the "philosophy of the crowd"
National capitalism
Antisemitism as social critique
From antisemitism to political mobilization
Class or nation?
The crisis of modernization and European Civil War : conclusion
The postwar : social justice for the proletarian city? 1945-1949 : New reality
New worldwide order
Postwar Cinderella
New scope of press influence
Tempting visions in hard times
Rhetoric of appeasement
Patterns of legitimization : dark past and bright future
Working classes and everyday life
Toward a functionalist city
Osiedle and beyond
Planning
Metropolitan dreams and a wake-up call
From modest modernization to a socialist city : conclusion
Transition : the post-industrial orphan in neoliberal Poland 1989-1994 : Re-inventing the city
The socialist-style American dream
Shock and helplessness
New press and new politics
The market as a principle of social organization
City in crisis
Projects of breaking through
Bringing capitalism back in : conclusion
A city lost in space in a country lost in time : conclusion : Struggling with the modern challenge
City from cotton and smoke
The press is back in town
Narratives of modernity
Methodological appendix
Primary sources covered
Reference list
Index of names
List of contributors