This spatial history of urban Europe turns to the ‘sometimes radical but often gradual transformations of inner cities’ (p.14.) in the medieval and early modern period. It tackles an interesting dynamic of continuity and change: Compared to later drastic transformations, the period before industrial modernity saw relatively few grand expansions and as such showed many continuities on the city-wide scale of urban morphology. Yet, on the smaller scale of districts, blocks, and individual plots, late medieval and early modern cities were full of changes. This edited volume discusses those subtle and also other not-so-subtle changes within city boundaries. The volume speaks to a specialist audience of urban historians and ‘does not aim to posit a general theory or model of urban change’, but is rather intended as ‘a starting point for discussion of change in late medieval and early modern towns’ (p.15).

In the words of the editors, the different chapters form a ‘somewhat eclectic compilation with the common theme of urban transformation’ (p.26). Here, they may be selling themselves short. The volume is tied together by the introduction, which discusses some major themes in research on urban change that will be useful especially to the intended target audience of urban historians who want to embark on future comparative research. Although hesitantly, and with a call for future research, the editors provide some interesting conclusions. Most important of these is that the shift in temporal and spatial perspectives that many of the chapters employ has been fruitful. Combining analyses at micro-, meso-, and macro-scale showed that gradual bottom-up processes were also important drivers of change. Furthermore, the long-term perspective that some of the chapters adopt is useful to getting to ‘root causes of change’ to ‘disentangle th[e] interplay of economic, social, political, cultural, and spatial factors’ (p.27).

In the first section about geopolitical and fire risks (I), the chapter by Liisa Seppänen looks at Turku between 1300-1830. As an account of long-term development, it discusses late medieval and early modern growth, as well as the destruction caused by fires. The second chapter by Rafał Eysymontt discusses Silesian urbanization in the late medieval period. Earlier research looked at the wave of thirteenth-century towns that were built with geometrically designed plans, but this chapter goes further by looking at the changes that happened after the towns were established. Thirdly, Janna Coomans discusses fire safety policies in the Low Countries. The most theoretically innovative chapter of the volume, it shows how Actor Network Theory (ANT) can be employed to understand medieval fire safety policies. In terms of the aims of the volume, this approach also allows shifts between the different scales, from the hearth within a home to the level of city-wide policy.

In the second section about religion as an accelerator of urban change, Anna Anisimova firstly discusses reformation as a catalyst of urban change in monastic towns in southeastern England. During the Dissolution (1537-1540), monasteries were ceded to the Crown, resulting in change, although no radical change in the towns’ layouts. Colin Arnaud next compares Bologna and Strasbourg from the medieval to early modern period. He shows how differences that might be seen as differences between Catholic and Protestant urban ideals were already in place before the Reformation. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation rather intensified those trends than initiate them. Finally, Maurizio Vesco and Valeria Viola discuss one specific intervention in the Palermo between 1600-1750, where a cross-shaped urban morphology was designed and implemented. Vesco and Viola conclude that while it was a success in terms of technical implementation, it may have failed in terms of it being ‘fully appropriated by the city’, as it was often excluded from processions.

In the third section about the impact of economic and demographic change, Jaap Evert Abrahamse’s chapter discusses how Amsterdam’s Singel canal has gotten its ambiguous role as transitory zone between the elite canal belt and the medieval city. The Singel, while not exactly part of the expansion area of the major seventeenth-century expansions of Amsterdam, was nonetheless transformed by these expansions. Its upscale branding as the Koningsgracht (King’s Canal) was not successful and it remained a mixed-use area, but it was also gentrified considerably. Heidi Deneweth then follows with a chapter on Bruges between 1550 and 1900. Her analysis shows that despite the strong continuity of Bruges, where the medieval pattern was preserved until the nineteenth century, there were considerable changes at plot-level, which varied considerably between the city center and the periphery, leading to increasing segregation. Lastly, Sarah Collins’ GIS analysis of Newcastle in the eighteenth century shows changes that were only observable through micro-analysis, starting with bottom-up change in the 1740s to 1780s initiated by real estate owners, followed by a late eighteenth-century pursuit of modernity by the urban government, in order to improve commercial and entertainment functions.

Some of the chapters are more theoretically informed, with a research question that explicitly engages in a wider historiography (notably those by Coomans, Arnaud, Vesco and Viola, Deneweth and, of course, the introductory chapter by the editors), while other chapters are more empirical and focus mainly on the details of urban transformation. Social historians will probably be most interested in the former, although both will of course be useful for the intended future discussion and comparative research on urban transformation. With those future comparisons in mind, it is a pity that there is little shared historiography among the chapters. On the other hand, that means that the diversity of approaches within urban history is well-represented. And nevertheless, especially the chapters in section III speak most directly to each other, offering a glimpse of what a future comparative history of inner-city transformations can look like.