Throughout the late Middle Ages, Castilian towns underwent a process of rapid economic and political growth which the monarchy sought to control. Accordingly, the monarchy reoriented its policies towards the towns. It attempted to impose the figure of the ‘corregidor’, the representative and defender of royal interests; it intervened wherever possible in the appointment of local government offices; it played its part in urban conflicts, alternately supporting opposing factions in an effort to take advantage of the situation and secure its own interests; and finally, the state established regulations governing economic activity. The process of royal intervention culminated under the Catholic monarchs (1474–1504) with what can be considered as a royal triumph.

The view propounded vigorously by Mohammad Habib that workers, artisans and craftsmen were not allowed to live within the city walls prior to the establishment of Turkish rule in India is examined. On the basis of primary archaeological sources, especially excavation reports and epigraphic data, this paper argues that diverse occupational groups, whose services were essential for the growth and development of towns, lived within the city precincts. Manufacturers and merchants both worked and lived together in the same town. The segregation theory, therefore, is rejected.

The paper uses unusually rich evidence from a manuscript life history written in 1901 from personal diaries to explore the changing relationship between home and workplace in Victorian London. The life history of Henry Jaques demonstrates the way in which decisions about employment and residence were related both to each other and to stages of the family life course. The uncertainty of work, lack of income to support a growing family, rising aspirations, the constant threat of illness, the ease of moving between rented property, close ties between home and workplace, the stresses produced by home working, and the attractions of suburbanization all interacted to shape the residential and employment history of Jaques and his family. The themes exemplified by this detailed life history were also relevant to many other people. Evidence collected from a large-scale project on lifetime residential histories is used to place the experiences of Henry Jaques in a broader context, and to show how they related to the changing social and economic structure of Victorian London.

Through a study of middle-class power in Norwich in the first third of the twentieth century, this paper tests a number of hypotheses concerning the behaviour of British urban elites. Analysis of networks (freemasons, business organizations and family) assesses the level of social unification among the middle class; elite involvement in chapel, charities and voluntary organizations addresses the question of social leadership; whilst elite politics is considered through three questions: did they become unified behind a single anti-socialist stance? Did the more important members of the elite leave urban politics? And did they abandon faith in grand civic projects? Its conclusions suggest that the power and involvement of the elite continued into the 1930s, maintaining a positive approach to the scope and function of municipal authority.

The tension between civic virtue and self-interest has been a central theme of three generations of American urban historians. Indeed these historians have played an important role in the struggle to build America's civic culture. Critically examining their cities in light of American ideals, they have embraced the responsibilities of citizenship and kept alive the spirit of civic virtue. This essay examines democracy in Cincinnati through the work of these urban historians and argues that Americans have dispensed with civic virtue at their own peril. The democratization of the republican ideal of citizenship remains the great, unfinished task of American civilization.

Which social groups were moving into owner occupation in Britain before the Second World War is a matter of controversy, with opposing claims that this involved mainly white-collar or skilled manual workers. Although reliable figures showing the growth of home ownership in this period are rare, data are available for Edinburgh which indicate that tenure development in the city probably resembled that of England and Wales rather than the rest of Scotland. The relationship between income and the cost of home ownership is examined and this suggests that the main social group to move into owner occupation were probably white-collar workers. However, an analysis of occupational information from housing across a range of values in the city shows that this movement also affected manual workers and that there was a strong association between the proportions in each social class and the average rateable value of areas of housing.

This review consists of a broad, uncritical survey of recent unpublished doctoral theses. Unlike previous years, where a mixture of British and non-British dissertations have been discussed, this year all the studies under consideration were completed at British universities, mostly in 1995. As before, the theses mentioned were chosen because of their focus on aspects of urban historical research, whilst the short descriptions are based on the abstracts published in the Aslib Index to Theses [ASLIB]. Urban history, or research with a strong urban bias, would appear to be in a healthy state in Britain and there was no shortage of studies to choose from, a total of thirty-nine receiving attention in this report. This focus on recent research in one country provides the opportunity to take stock and make some observations about current trends as well as allowing comparisons to be drawn with previous years where there is both continuity and evidence of change. To complement this focus on Britain, the next report will assess the state of urban history research outside the United Kingdom, and especially in North America.