Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Perfect Cities : Chicago's Utopias of 1893 - James Gilbert

Perfect Cities

Chicago's Utopias of 1893

By: James Gilbert

Paperback | 1 June 1993 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $56.95

$47.75

16%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $11.94 with

 or 

Ships in 5 to 7 business days

In this elegant and sensitive look at the milieu of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, James Gilbert examines the three utopias that were designed to bring order to the chaos of urban life: The World's Fair itself, George Pullman's community for his workers, and Dwight Moody's evangelical crusade. Gilbert draws upon a rich selection of fiction, collective biography, architecture, photographs, and souvenir books to show how these experiments each acted as a middle-class prescription for coming to terms with the new cultural diversity and competition resulting from the disruptive forces of technological change, commercial enterprise, and pluralism.

"Mr. Gilbert's splendid book opens the door on a conflicted past, and provides an indispensable perspective on the troubled and troubling struggle we face today between old and new, unity and diversity."—Alan Trachtenberg, New York Times

"Perfect Cities is a remarkable account of a struggle for cultural definition. Chronicling the byplay between cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity, unity and diversity, James Gilbert not only throws light on Chicago's past but also provides insight that can be applied to the cultural debates of our own time."—Adria Bernardi, Chicago Tribune

"What Gilbert has done is to enable the reader to experience the grand utopian visions of the times, yet at the same time see the cantankerous reality that made the visions impossible."—Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

More in History

The Burning Blue : Stories of the Navy's warriors in the skies - Mike Carlton
Whispering Death - Patricia Skehan

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Melbourne Airport Tullamarine : A History - Arun Chandu

RRP $49.99

$40.75

18%
OFF
Elizabeth II : In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. - Robert Hardman
Belonging - Ambelin Kwaymullina

Hardcover

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
Children of the Third Reich : Three Pasts, Three Futures - Catrine Clay
Stuff the British Stole - Marc Fennell

RRP $36.99

$29.99

19%
OFF
Kosciuszko : The incredible life of the man behind the mountain - Anthony Sharwood
Suicidal Empathy : Dying to Be Kind - Gad Saad

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
First Knowledges Politics : Philosophical Ordering by Country - Morgan James Brigg
Surveying the Wild Abyss : Unravelling settler memory - Barry Corr
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

RRP $22.99

$19.75

14%
OFF
On the Shortness of Life : The Stoic Classic - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

RRP $24.95

$21.75

13%
OFF