Overview

Based on research in previously closed Soviet archives, this book sheds light on the formative years of Soviet city planning and on state efforts to consolidate power through cityscape design. Stepping away from Moscow's central corridors of power, Heather D. DeHaan focuses her study on 1930s Nizhnii Novgorod, where planners struggled to accommodate the expectations of a Stalinizing state without sacrificing professional authority and power. Bridging institutional and cultural history, the book brings together a variety of elements of socialism as enacted by planners on a competitive urban stage, such as scientific debate, the crafting of symbolic landscapes, and state campaigns for the development of cultured cities and people. By examining how planners and other urban inhabitants experienced, lived, and struggled with socialism and Stalinism, DeHaan offers readers a much broader, more complex picture of planning and planners than has been revealed to date.

Full Product Details

Author:   Heather DeHaan
Publisher:   University of Toronto Press
Imprint:   University of Toronto Press
Edition:   3rd Revised edition
Dimensions:   Width: 16.00cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.60cm
Weight:   0.540kg
ISBN:  

9781442645349

ISBN 10:   1442645342
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   28 May 2013
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Table of Contents

List of maps & illustrations List of Acronyms and Abbreviations A Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Toponyms Acknowledgements Introduction: Planning, Planners, and Performance 1 From Nizhnii to Gorky: The City as Palimpsest & Stage 2 Visionary Planning: Confronting Socio-Material Agencies 3 From Ivory Tower to City Street: Building a New Nizhnii, 1928-1932 4 Stalinist Representation: Iconographic Vision, 1935-1938 5 Stalinism as Stagecraft: The Architecture of Performance 6 A City That Builds Itself: The Limits of Technocracy 7 Performing Socialism: Connecting Space to Self 8 Conclusion: Living Socialism - In the Shadow of the Political Select Bibliography Index

Reviews

'Stimulating, insightful... This book is particularly rewarding because it uses the case study as a springboard to analyze a wide range of thought-provoking issues concerning city design and planning in both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet eras... Highly recommended.' -- N.M Brooks Choice Magazine - vol 51:04:2013

DeHaan's book is a triumph of archival research. She reconstructs historical conflicts in beautiful detail... Stalinist City Planning is clearly a major achievement ... It is sure to interest anyone who works on cities in Russian culture, the Russian provinces, the construction of Stalinist culture, or architectural history.' -- Emily D. Johnson Slavic and East European Journal - vol 59:04:2015 'This book deserves a wide audience among scholars of Soviet history and will be valuable to urban historians in other fields as well.' -- David L. Hoffmann American Historical Review - vol 119:03:2014 'Stimulating, insightful... This book is particularly rewarding because it uses the case study as a springboard to analyze a wide range of thought-provoking issues concerning city design and planning in both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet eras... Highly recommended.' -- N.M Brooks Choice Magazine - vol 51:04:2013 'Historians of the Stalinist era and scholars of socialist city planning will find much of interest in this well researched book... DeHaan has made an important contribution to our understanding of urban planning and local politics under Stalin.' -- Steven E. Harris Canadian Slavonic Papers vol 75:3-4:2013 Soviet City Planning examines the many ways the Soviet authority aimed to shape a collective identity though design but is most enjoyable when animating the fascinating contradictions of the lived experience. -- Jonathan Studman Spacing Magazine 'Heather DeHaan has written an engaging, incisive, and thoroughly documented account of city planning under Stalin... She skillfully illuminates the experience of planners before, during and after the Stalin era.' -- Peter Sigrist The NEP Era: Soviet Russia 1921-1928 'Dehaan's insightful new study takes the readers into the rooms where the Soviet future was drafted and where the cracks in the edifice were unwittingly drawn in.' -- Stephen Brain The Journal on Modern History vol 87:01:2015 'DeHaan's discussion of city planners under Stalin has produced innovative work based on archival documents. She weaves an engaging tale of the interaction of impossible visions, planning, design, politics, and the realities of a cityscape... A well-written book.' -- Charles J. Ruud University of Toronto Quarterly vol 84:03:2015 'Dehaan's excellent study deserves to be read widely... Historians of Stalinism more generally will find much of interest and value here, especially for thinking about how socialism was built, both literally and metaphorically.' -- Robert Dale Europe-Asia Studies vol 67:08:2015

'Stimulating, insightful... This book is particularly rewarding because it uses the case study as a springboard to analyze a wide range of thought-provoking issues concerning city design and planning in both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet eras... Highly recommended.'

'The reader will find this book a thought-provoking contribution to the contemporary scholarship on Stalinist culture... DeHaan's book is one of the few studies of local city planning in Soviet Union accessible in English. This makes the monograph a valuable resource for researchers.' -- Maria Silina H-Russia September 2016 DeHaan's book is a triumph of archival research. She reconstructs historical conflicts in beautiful detail... Stalinist City Planning is clearly a major achievement ... It is sure to interest anyone who works on cities in Russian culture, the Russian provinces, the construction of Stalinist culture, or architectural history.' -- Emily D. Johnson Slavic and East European Journal vol 59:04:2015 'A thought-provoking contribution to the contemporary scholarship on Stalinist Culture... This monograph is a valuable resource for researchers of Soviet architecture and urban history.' -- Maria Silina H-Net/H-Russia September 2016 'This book deserves a wide audience among scholars of Soviet history and will be valuable to urban historians in other fields as well.' -- David L. Hoffmann American Historical Review - vol 119:03:2014 'Stimulating, insightful... This book is particularly rewarding because it uses the case study as a springboard to analyze a wide range of thought-provoking issues concerning city design and planning in both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet eras... Highly recommended.' -- N.M Brooks Choice Magazine - vol 51:04:2013 'Historians of the Stalinist era and scholars of socialist city planning will find much of interest in this well researched book... DeHaan has made an important contribution to our understanding of urban planning and local politics under Stalin.' -- Steven E. Harris Canadian Slavonic Papers vol 75:3-4:2013 Soviet City Planning examines the many ways the Soviet authority aimed to shape a collective identity though design but is most enjoyable when animating the fascinating contradictions of the lived experience. -- Jonathan Studman Spacing Magazine 'Heather DeHaan has written an engaging, incisive, and thoroughly documented account of city planning under Stalin... She skillfully illuminates the experience of planners before, during and after the Stalin era.' -- Peter Sigrist The NEP Era: Soviet Russia 1921-1928 'Dehaan's insightful new study takes the readers into the rooms where the Soviet future was drafted and where the cracks in the edifice were unwittingly drawn in.' -- Stephen Brain The Journal on Modern History vol 87:01:2015 'DeHaan's discussion of city planners under Stalin has produced innovative work based on archival documents. She weaves an engaging tale of the interaction of impossible visions, planning, design, politics, and the realities of a cityscape... A well-written book.' -- Charles J. Ruud University of Toronto Quarterly vol 84:03:2015 'Dehaan's excellent study deserves to be read widely... Historians of Stalinism more generally will find much of interest and value here, especially for thinking about how socialism was built, both literally and metaphorically.' -- Robert Dale Europe-Asia Studies vol 67:08:2015

Author Information

Heather D. DeHaan is an associate professor in the Department of History at Binghamton University.

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