Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Matthew Wade, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

The presentation is based on, and follows up my book Cities of Power (London, Verso, 2017), a global history of national capitals, since the first, revolutionary Paris and Washington DC. It has four parts. The first deals with nation-state formation and its capitals, highlighting four different historical routes to nation-states, each with its specific background, posing specific as well as general tasks to the construction of a capital city of a nation. The second looks at the developing relationships between the state capital and competing cities, global and national, in the context of an evolving capitalist economy, global and national, which is not steered from the national political centre. Thirdly, capital cities are not only centres of power, but also centres of contestations of power. This part will deal with various kinds of popular urban challenges to the national elites. The final section will try to envisage the future of capital cities, in a world of challenges to nation-states.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Therborn Göran is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Affiliated Professor of Sociology at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He was previously Co-Director of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, and Professor of Political Science at the Catholic University, Netherlands. His books include Between Sex and Power: Family in the World, 1900-2000 (2004); The World: A Beginner’s Guide (2001); The Killing Fields of Inequality (2013); Cities of Power (2017); Inequality and the Labyrinths of Democracy (forthcoming 2020). His publications have appeared in at least 24 languages.

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