The defortification of the German city, 1689-1866

Yair Mintzker

"This book tells the story of German cities' metamorphoses from walled to defortified places between 1689 and 1866"-- "Throughout its long history, the German city was always a dynamic organism. It continuously changed in size and appearance, and its economic and political relationships with the outer world were often in flux. The defortification of the German city in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a significant moment in the city's history. It signaled a fundamental transformation of the urban environment on three interrelated levels: the level of the city's defense against military intervention from the outside; the level of public security and police within the city; and the symbolic level of the way both locals and foreigners imagined the urban community"--