European Urbanization, 1500-1800

by Jan de Vries

In European Urbanization Jan de Vries provides a comprehensive data base for understanding the nature of the changes that took place in European cities from 1500 to 1800. The book is based on an immense systematic survey of the population history of 379 European cities with 10,000 or more inhabitants analysed at fifty-year intervals. Using a wide range of economic, demographic and geographic models, Professor de Vries illustrates the patterns of urban growth, draws conclusions about the significance of migratory behaviour and shows the effects of urbanization on the history of Europe as a whole. Presenting these broad measures in urbanization the book makes the case that the cities of Europe gradually came to form a single urban system. The properties of this system are analysed with the use of several different geographical rank-size distribution, transition matrices and potential surfaces, among others. This examination of the fortunes of cities of different sizes and regions and the economic and political factors that affected their development is fundamentally important for understanding modern Europe and contemporary problems of urban development. Jan de Vries mines these rich, complex data to give us a balanced view of the dynamics of change in urban, pre-industrial society. This book was first published in 1984.

Genres: History

432 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1984

About the author

Jan de Vries is Ehrman Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Vysloczil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review of dV84 is written with regard to Bairoch88 being the reference point:
- he relates a lot more to demographic issues,
- to spatial patterns and general macrohistorical fluctuations
BUT
- the timespan covered is a lot shorter
- the compiled dataset is weaker and contains more errors (he includes all cities that had >10k inhabitants in 1800)
- exlcudes everything east of Vienna essentially from the analysis (only a quick coverage in the appendix)
- he emphasises a lot the rank-size distribution and writes a lot in the spirit of the "systems of cities" literature
- the biggest plus is, that he is going comparatively deep into urban demographics (a single chapter on migration) and discusses the evolution of the historiography in that respect

On thing that I thought was funny to note is the fact that he puts a picture of nightlight activity shot from a satellite. The DMS one, which is exactly the same that is used to proxy for economic activity by economists only from after 2010.