SZ/NDR Bestsellers List Non-Fiction for November: Place 1. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an enormous growth of European cities. At the same time, the profound changes that define modernity predominantly took place in urban areas. Friedrich Lenger offers an impressive panorama of the political, social, cultural, and economic history of the European city since 1850 in this book. He looks far beyond the metropolises of Paris, London, and Berlin, examining the European map from Lisbon to St. Petersburg and from Dublin to Constantinople. He explores the political and economic reasons for the urbanization of Europe, the transformations of urban society, and the culture that has emerged in cities over the past 150 years.