About the Book
From Amsterdam in 1600 to London and Washington today, the people who live beside the North Atlantic Ocean have built cities with row houses. But why? Why do London and Washington have row houses while Paris and Minneapolis do not? With this question, Charles Duff began his exploration of the world’s row house cities.
The result is a new book, The North Atlantic Cities. It takes readers on a journey that begins in Holland in the 1600s and ends in the US, the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands in the present. Through Duff’s lively prose and 180+ pictures, we watch as the North Atlantic cities grow, become beautiful, and invent many of the things we take for granted today: parks, mass transit, downtowns, even suburbia. These are great stories, well told and well illustrated.
PUBLISHER
The Bluecoat Press
RELEASE DATE
November 1, 2019
SoftCOVER
Pages
LIST PRICE
$29.95
To Right Here, Right Now
Praise for The North Atlantic Cities
“It has been some time since I enjoyed a book so much, one that takes a topic that spans 400 years, 4000 miles, and 20 cities, and still manages to drive home a clear and simple point. The only other book I’ve read that accomplished such a marvelous feat was Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.”
Bruce Laverty, Gladys Brooks Curator of Architecture, Athenaeum of Philadelphia
"The North Atlantic Cities is a fascinating study of four hundred years of architecture and urban development in four countries: the Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States.
Duff starts with a kind of building that few writers have ever considered seriously, the row house. And he sees – and helps us to see – that this innocuous-seeming housing type is the key to understanding why many of the world’s great cities look and function as they do. He shows cities in full.”
Alexander Garvin, Principal, AGA Public Realm Associates, New York
“This book combines a shrewd and sensitive reading of four centuries of urban history with a thoroughly practical understanding of how people actually build their buildings, streets, and squares. Charles Duff has produced the guide to this immensely significant group of cities, indispensable to all of us who study, influence, or care about urban form.”
Tim O’Donnell, President, Eastern Mortgage Capital, Boston, Mass.
“Charles Duff’s propelling curiosity takes the reader on an animated journey through a great international family of cities. His vision is both sweeping and intimate, from four centuries of great historical upheavals to the intimate fabric of small houses and characteristic streets. He argues persuasively that the North Atlantic cities materialize an imagery and reality of interdependence that lie at the heart of notions of community. "
Jeffrey Cohen, Bryn Mawr College
“Charles Duff’s story is elegantly constructed around the principal features and innovations of a family of great cities. These cities have a very special character. Duff helps the reader to understand what they are, how they came to be, and what they should do next. Above all, he has a remarkable ability to help a reader see streets, squares, buildings, and ports – and see them as a physician might, with a view to their well-being, or the weakening of it.”
Orest Ranum, Johns Hopkins University
"Duff loves cities, Glasgow, Delft, and Dublin, say, and even more likes to visit them. He speaks of Hampstead Garden Suburb (North London) as he does Highlandtown [Baltimore]. He is full of insights, and is amazing that he has been able to compress so many of them within these pages."
Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun.
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