Harvard Studies in Urban History: Town Into City: Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Meaning of Community, 1840-1880 (Paperback)

Through the history of one city Michael Frisch provides a persuasive and graceful account of the shifting context of urban experience. He traces the shift of people's perception of community from an informal, direct sensation to a formal, perceived abstraction, thus relating the history of a place to the history of an idea.