Towns and Communication (Volume 1): Communication in Towns

The advent of email and texting has dramatically changed the way we communicate. In essence, we have lost touch in our dealings with each other. This change may have been speeded by newer technologies, but telegraphs and telephones had a great impact in our perceptions of time and place. Before mass communication, the way we ordered and embedded knowledge and the possibilities of social interaction were defined by the extended human experience of living in towns. Can this experience be replicated with new technologies? The topics discussed include Lines of Communication in Medieval Dublin,—Places of Power: The Spreading of Official Information and the Social Uses of Space in Fifteenth-Century Paris,— Ferry Services and Social Life in Early Modern Norwegian Towns,—Harbor, Rail and Telegraph: The Post Office and Communication in Nineteenth-Century Dublin,—The Tramway and the Urban Development of Zagreb in the Period of Modernization,—and Migrant Development of Communication Space in Sydney.