Festival Cities ― Culture, Planning and Urban Life Since 1945

Following on the heels of their very successful Olympic Cities, in this book John and Margaret Gold turn to the experience of cities that stage regular cultural festivals, highlighting the nature and significance of performance, ritual and spectacle in urban life. While the focus is on the period from 1945 to the present, the history of urban cultural festivals from Antiquity to the mid-nineteenth century is included as background to the survey that follows.

While cultural festivals have always been an intrinsic part of human society, it is in Europe that many of the high art forms and festival traditions developed that were subsequently exported to other parts of the world - Americas, Africa, Australia and parts of Asia. Traditional forms of celebration such as carnival also spread from Catholic Europe to the Americas. This book therefore will concentrate on the European experience but draws on a wider base when specifically relevant.

Through the ten chapters there is progression from conceptual grounding to scene-setting thematic chapters that include systematically-organised historical coverage, case study material and commentary on emergent trends.