Cities of Power

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The distillation of decades of scholarship in urban history and the sociology of nationalism connects the look and feel of cities with their specific national histories. Command of history and knowledge of the real world inform Göran Therborn's thinking, making him one of the most engaging sociologists. The work focuses on places where transformative events occur, helping us understand current tensions between states and people, capitals and peripheries, populism and elitism, nationalism and globalism. It serves as a riposte to the idea of the Global City and the vision of interconnected, intangible capitalism it describes. Few thinkers display such a genuinely global range. Therborn's description of a global city provokes reflection and may serve as an important resource for sociology doctoral students. He is a highly conceptual thinker, combining formal rigor with a vast range of empirical data, resulting in a powerful theoretical structure supported by compelling evidence. At a time when historians and economists are increasingly specialized, the big comparative questions about modernity, inequality, and potential change have largely been left to sociologists. Therborn, probably Sweden's most distinguished social scientist, has made essential contributions through analytical lucidity, common sense, and an extraordinary command of international comparative data.