This volume furthers our understanding of who actually ran cities in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and develops greater understanding of the relationship between elite and "power" in cities. To develop answers, two fields of research, which have often remained separate, have been brought together: the economic, social and cultural history of elite and the political history of power resources and decision-making. By looking at specific case studies through the lens of these issues, the volume will encourage the reader to challenge common perceptions of a monolithic elite and to replace them with a more sophisticated view of urban power as an interplay between various economic, social, political and cultural elite groups.

Contents: General Editors' Preface; Preface; Introduction: who ran the cities?, Ralf Roth and Robert Beachy. Part I The British Model - City Elites in the United Kingdom: Elite and pluralist power in 18th century English towns: a case study of King's Lynn, Emi Kinoshi; Urban power, industrialisation and political reform: Swansea elites in the town and region, 1780-1850, Louise Miskell; Who really ran the cities? Municipal knowledge and policy networks in British local government 1832-1914, James Moore and Richard Rodger; Running an unregulated town: strategies of Lincoln's municipal elite 1860-1910, Denise McHugh; The challenge of urban democracy: municipal elites in Edinburgh and Leipzig 1890-1930, Michael Schÿfer. Part II Diversity - Formal and Informal Structures of Continental Europe's City Elites: Governing Trondheim in the 18th century: formal structures and everyday life, Steinar Supphellen; German urban elites in the 18th and 19th centuries, Ralf Roth; Voluntary society in mid-19th-century Pest: urbanisation and the changing distribution of power, �rpád Tóth; Running 'modern' cities in a patriarchal milieu: perspectives from the 19th century Balkans, Dobrinka Parusheva. Part III Democratic Metropolises - City Elites in North America: Class and politics: the case of New York's bourgeoisie, Sven Beckert; A 'Jeffersonian skepticism of urban democracy'? the educated middle class and the problem of political power in Chicago 1880-1940, Marcus Grÿser; Patrician elites and power in 19th century Montreal and Quebec City, Brian Young; Bibliography; Index.