Global Cityscapes of Modernity and Post Modernity: Vienna and Berlin 1900-2000

Abstract

The focus of this volume is broad, both historically and topically.Berlin and Vienna, modernity and postmodernity, the twentieth centuryand two incisive Wenden of a tumultuous millennium offer anopportunity to examine central issues in the relationship amongEuropean culture, history, and politics. Cities provide a rich locationto examine expressions of creativity, growth, and change over thecourse of one hundred years. As a transit point of entry and exit, thecity becomes a site for exchange and cross-fertilization of peoples,ideas, and commodities. Cities are nodes in a network whose spokesextend beyond their metropolitan borders and bring intellectual andphysical nourishment to surrounding areas. This European centurywill be known for its great cities and the production of culturalobjects that spread around the globe. Less dramatically, neverthelesssignificant for the transfer of knowledge, academic figures will alsobe remembered for the dissemination of these intellectual traditionsto generations of students who were fortunate to cross their paths.Hinrich C. Seeba, professor of German at the University of California,Berkeley, from 1967 to the present, is one such person.