Port Towns and Urban Cultures (PDF)

Brad Beaven is Reader in Social and Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He has written widely on British popular culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is the author of two monographs, Leisure, Citizenship and Working Class Men, 1850-1945 and Visions of Empire. Patriotism, Popular Culture and the City, 1870-1939.


Karl Bell is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research explores the supernatural in nineteenth-century Britain. He is the author of two monographs, The Magical Imagination: Magic and Modernity in Urban England, 1780-1914 and The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Cultures.

Robert James is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He researches British society's leisure habits in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and is author of Popular Culture and Working-Class Taste in Britain 1930-39: a round of cheap diversions? and co-editor of Hollywood and the World.

“This book focuses on two core themes: the nature of urban maritime cultures; and representations of port towns. ... Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, from maritime and port studies to architecture, geography and ethnography, make this rich collection of essays a valued contribution to interdisciplinary port and maritime studies. ... This collection of studies is highly recommended ... and is an important contribution to port and maritime studies.” (Paul Th. Van de Laar, International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 29 (4), November, 2017)

“Book makes a compelling case for study of the port that refigures its peripheral, othered status, and instead shows that port towns have much to offer not only the field of maritime studies, but also historians, geographers, literary and cultural scholars with an interest in histories of social identity, cultural formation and exchange and urban representation. … The chapters contribute to assessments of maritime identity, coastal cultures, and sea representations … will be instructive to scholars working on these themes.” (Charlotte Mathieson, The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 103 (3), August, 2017)“In Port Towns and Urban Cultures the editors’ aim, through the exploration of a series of ports from around the globe, is to advance the reader's understanding of how each port was a crucible for the forging of distinctive urban and maritime identities. … This book most certainly contributes to urban-maritime history. Moreover, it is a good read.” (Jacob Bart Hak, The Northern Mariner, Le marin du nord, XXVI (4), October, 2016)