Leisure Cultures in Urban Europe, C.1700–1870 : A Transnational Perspective

This collection of essays examines the history of urban leisure cultures in Europe in the transition from the early modern to the modern period. The volume brings together research on a wide variety of leisure activities which are usually studied in isolation: from theatre and music culture, art exhibitions, spas and seaside resorts, to sports and games, walking and cafés and restaurants. The book develops a new research agenda for the history of leisure by focusing on the complex processes of cultural transfer that were fundamental in transforming urban leisure culture from the British Isles to France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Austria and the Ottoman Empire. How did new models of organising and experiencing urban leisure pastimes ‘travel’ from one European region to another? Who were the main agents of cultural innovation and appropriation? How did entrepreneurs, citizens and urban authorities mediate and adapt foreign influences to local contexts? How did the increasingly ‘entangled’ character of European urban leisure culture impact upon the ways men and women from various classes identified with their social, cultural or (proto)national communities?Accessible and wide-ranging, this volume offers students and scholars a broad overview of the history of urban leisure culture in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. The agenda-setting focus on transnational cultural transfer will stimulate new questions and contribute to a more integrated study of the rise of modern urban culture. Front matter Contents List of figures List of contributors General editor’s introduction Acknowledgements Introduction Part I Charting the flows: institutions and genres Art in the urban public sphere: art venues by entrepreneurs, associations and institutions, 1800–1850 Melodrama in post-revolutionary Europe: the genealogy and diffusion of a ‘popular’ theatrical genre and experience, 1780–1830 Games and sports in the long eighteenth century: failures of transmission Part II Processes of selection and adaptation: actors and structures Georgian Bath: a transnational culture Music and opera in Brussels, 1700–1850: a tale of two cities Leisure culture, entrepreneurs and urban space: Swedish towns in a European perspective, eighteenth–nineteenth centuries Coffeehouses: leisure and sociability in Ottoman Istanbul Part III Towards an ‘entangled history’ of urban leisure culture The rules of leisure in eighteenth-century Paris and London City of pleasure or ville des plaisirs? Urban leisure culture exchanges between England and France through travel writing (1700–1820) The role of inland spas as sites of transnational cultural exchange in the production of European leisure culture (1750–1870) Coastal resorts and cultural exchange in Europe, 1780–18701 Select bibliography Index This collection of essays examines the history of urban leisure cultures in Europe during the transition from the early modern to the modern period. Bringing together research on a wide variety of activities - from the theatre and art exhibitions to spas, seaside resorts and games - it develops a new scholarly agenda for the history of leisure, focusing on the complex processes of cultural transfer that transformed urban leisure culture from the British Isles to the Ottoman Empire. How did new models of urban leisure pastimes travel throughout Europe? Who were the main agents of cultural innovation, appropriation and adaptation? How did the increasingly entangled character of European urban leisure culture impact upon the ways men and women from various classes identified with their social, cultural or (proto-)national communities? These are some of the questions explored by this accessible and wide-ranging collection, which looks at leisure from a long-term, interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. This volume combines research on a wide variety of leisure activities in the early modern and modern periods, providing an unprecedented transnational perspective to the study of European leisure history Combines research on a wide variety of leisure activities in the early modern and modern periods, providing an unprecedented transnational perspective to the study of European leisure history. -- .