Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 1999
Why 1500? Why 1800? Why does Urban History's review of periodical literature use this definition of the early modern? Does urban history have a periodization of its own? The reluctance of historians to stray before and after 1800 is a major theme of C.R. Friedrichs's review of early modern German urban history, ‘But are we any closer to home? Early modern German urban history since German Home Towns’, Central European History, 30 (1998), 163–86, and I wondered about these issues while reading some of the articles published this year which did not stop and surrender their historical passports at 1500.