The Unruly City: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution

by Mike Rapport

Overview

A lauded expert on European history paints a vivid picture of Paris, London, and New York during the Age of Revolutions, exploring how each city fostered or suppressed political uprisings within its boundaries

In The Unruly City, historian Mike Rapport offers a vivid history of three intertwined cities toward the end of the eighteenth century-Paris, London, and New York-all in the midst of political chaos and revolution. From the British occupation of New York during the Revolutionary War, to agitation for democracy in London and popular uprisings, and ultimately regicide in Paris, Rapport explores the relationship between city and revolution, asking why some cities engender upheaval and some suppress it.

Why did Paris experience a devastating revolution while London avoided one? And how did American independence ignite activism in cities across the Atlantic? Rapport takes readers from the politically charged taverns and coffeehouses on Fleet Street, through a sea battle between the British and French in the New York Harbor, to the scaffold during the Terror in Paris.

The Unruly City shows how the cities themselves became protagonists in the great drama of revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465022281
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	832,024
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Dr. Michael Rapport is a professor of history at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The author of numerous books, Rapport lives in Stirling, Scotland.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Three Cities in an Age of Revolution ix

1 The Revolution Comes to New York, 1765-1775 1

2 London Defiant: Wilkes and Liberty, 1763-1776 35

3 The King Against Paris, 1763-1776 55

4 New York City in Revolution and War, 1775-1783 73

5 London Burns: Reformers and Rioters, 1776-1780 99

6 Paris Rises: The Coming of Revolution, 1776-1789 123

7 New York: Capital City, 1783-1789 149

8 Paris in Revolution, 1789-1793 173

9 London Debates the French Revolution, 1789-1792 203

10 Paris in the Terror, 1793-1794 223

11 Radical London: Democrats, Loyalists and the Reaction, 1792-1794 255

12 New York Confronts the French Revolution, 1789-1795 283

Conclusion: The Revolutionary City and Historical Memory 307

Acknowledgements 319

Notes 323

Index 351

Editorial Reviews

Why the British didn't revolt and why both their American colonists and their French rivals did is one question at the heart of Mike Rapport's fine study. Another of his concerns is the difference in intensity between the American and French revolutions…To put it in more general terms: What forces account for differing degrees of upheaval when societies are in crisis?…[Rapport's] urban focus yields a refreshingly vibrant narrative. At times, his political study could almost double as a travelogue.

The New York Times Book Review - Russell Shorto

★ 03/20/2017
Rapport (1848: Year of Revolution), professor of history at the University of Glasgow, examines the political geography of dissent and revolution in three key Western cities, Paris, London, and New York, in the years 1763–1795. Of the three, Paris experienced the most extreme internal upheaval, and Rapport’s chapters on the French metropolis are his best. He shows, for example how certain neighborhoods, such as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, became centers of political ferment and action. Rapport’s choice of New York is questionable, given that Boston was so significant in the American Revolution and New York was occupied by British troops from late 1776 to 1783. However, he shares insight on the nature of the popular uprising against the 1765 Stamp Act, a revolt against both the British and the city’s elites, and notes that, at the time of the Revolution, one-fifth of New York households “kept at least one slave.” Concerning London, Rapport shows that political activity was basically civil, excepting six days of anti-Catholic rioting in June 1780, and characterized as much by a “spontaneous tide of popular conservatism” in the city’s streets, coffee houses, and pubs as it was by reformist agitation. Rapport has combined academic scholarship with a well-paced, engaging writing style to produce an exceptional work of comparative late-18th-century political and urban history. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A refreshingly vibrant narrative. At times, [Rapport's] political study could almost double as a travelogue."
—New York Times Book Review

"Highly readable.... [Rapport] has an excellent eye for the arresting anecdote or apt quotation.... He also excels at literary portraiture, painting quick but vivid sketches of well-known figures from Mary Wollstonecraft to Maximilien Robespierre."—Wall Street Journal

[Rapport] creates a richly textured picture of 18th-century urban life, and how it varied among the three cities... in [his] hands, the cities become players in the story, not simply backdrops for the turmoil of the Age of Revolutions."—Shelf Awareness

"[An] eye-opening comparative history.... Rapport's in-depth research into these three cities at war is significant, the similarities and differences making the story all the more fascinating."—Kirkus Reviews

"Rapport has combined academic scholarship with a well-paced, engaging writing style to produce an exceptional work of comparative late-18th-century political and urban history."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Publisher

05/15/2017
In an age of upheaval, revolutionaries and radicals in three cities effectively used the cityscape to mobilize popular action toward opening politics to broader, popular participation. How did geography, culture, buildings, and social institutions in Paris, London, and New York figure into the high drama of the American and French Revolutions, asks Rapport (history, Univ. of Glasgow; 1848: The Year of Revolution). These cities were the hubs of economic, political, and social authority and power between 1763 and 1795. Amid their cityscapes, the spaces and buildings, both physically and symbolically, became intertwined with the political and social disruptions of the era. However, more than a narrative of physical places and structures, this work is a complex, dynamic story of the struggle for democratic change in the communities of these metropolises. Artisans, laborers, and shopkeepers were active players in the revolutionary experience, and major differences in responses to provocations in these movements ensured divergent social and cultural outcomes. VERDICT A fascinating account for readers interested in the history of two North Atlantic super powers of the 18th century. Rapport successfully shows how place and ideas mix to affect profound change.—Glen Edward Taul, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

Library Journal

2017-02-20
A history of the age of revolution in the Atlantic world's three largest cities.Throughout this eye-opening comparative history, Rapport (History/Univ. of Glasgow; Nineteenth-Century Europe, 2005, etc.) effectively explores "how groups and individuals lived through the revolutionary upheaval with all its anxieties, its stirring visions of the possible, its wrenching fear, its abject despair and seething hatred. The key point is that revolution is a human experience in all its exhilaration, terror and squalor." The author ably captures this experience, following the rise of the populace, those who were newly literate and learning from pamphlets and fliers now readily available due to the expansion of printers. They gathered in urban locales like pubs, taverns, and public meeting spaces across New York, Paris, and London, and they were alike in the blooming of suppressed anger. While London did not suffer a true revolution, the anger and demands for rights were still there. Rapport spots the differences in England's economic segregation and the strength of her loyalists, but there's a great deal more to it. All three cities were reeling under the costs of the Seven Years' War. France was literally broke, and England looked to her colonies to refill her coffers, resulting in the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, the Intolerables Act, and other tariffs that aroused the ire of the colonists. Though the cities couldn't be more different—in their topography, geography, culture, and class distinctions—the author points to the differences in a manner that allows readers to see how they did what they had to do to arrive at similar conclusions. The French had no history of free assembly, nor an elected legislature, not to mention few constitutional safeguards. One must wonder if the wide economic differences and suppressions led to the vast differences in the levels of violence. Rapport's in-depth research into these three cities at war is significant, the similarities and differences making the story all the more fascinating.

Kirkus Reviews

In the late eighteenth century, New York and Paris were homes to revolution. London also saw unrest. Neil Dickson narrates this work with the energy of those times. Mark Rapport links specific sites in those cities to their political movements. The Common, where the Liberty Pole stood, was a rallying point for the Sons of Liberty in New York, as the Bastille prison was to those leading the French Revolution. Coffeehouses and neighborhoods also played roles. Dickson’s delivery ensures that the the political figures quoted become like characters in a fascinating story. Patterns of anger and polarization emerge that may remind listeners of today's fractious discourse. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JULY 2017 - AudioFile