'The volume serves as a very valuable introduction to the history of scholarship and research related to urban life in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Students and scholars of urban history, urban studies, and urban planning, all levels.' — Choice“With a rich mix of superb scholarship and diverse primary sources, The American Urban Reader questions key concepts of the American City and enables readers to make new connections among historical actors, events, technologies and theories.” — David Smiley, Assistant Professor, Architecture and Urban Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University“The American Urban Reader has it all--classic essays and cutting-edge scholarship combined with key primary documents that explore 400 years of American urban life, from John Winthrop’s ‘City on a Hill’ to post-Katrina New Orleans. Thoughtfully organized and transdisciplinary in its scope, this terrific volume is essential reading for students, teachers, and anyone interested in learning more about metropolitan America.”— Margaret O’Mara, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Washington“The American Urban Reader will certainly be timely in the era of Barack Obama. The urban vote was decisive in his amazing election.”— Ronald Takaki, author of A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America“The editors have done a terrific job of collecting seminal primary, secondary, and theoretical essays on the history, the social life, and the form of the city from the colonial period to the postmodern metropolis. The reader will be useful for students of planning, urban studies, and history—indeed for any student interested in understanding the evolution of the metropolitan landscape.” — Eric Schneider, Urban Studies and History, University of Pennsylvania