Flammable Cities: Fire, Urban Environment and Culture in History

Conference at the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC

May 15-17, 2008

Conveners:
Greg Bankoff
(University of Hull, UK)

Uwe Luebken
(German Historical Institute, Washington, DC)

Jordan Sand
(Georgetown University, Washington, DC)

This conference will examine the history of uncontrolled fire in large urban settlements. No work to date has taken a global approach to this issue. Research on fire in preindustrial and industrial cities has tended to be limited to treatment in the context of individual urban histories (either of particular great fires or of the growth of firefighting technology) or general treatment of overall trends. The English-language historiography on urban fire history overwhelmingly treats only Europe and the United States. Departing from these narrow methodological and geographical limits should illuminate a host of new issues related to cities and the environment by permitting comparison of differing urban morphologies, types of building material, social systems, cultural attitudes, and methods for coping with disaster. For more information, see:

http://www.ghi-dc.org/events/conferences/
2008/fc/program20080429.pdf