From Cotton and Smoke

This book aptly addresses current academic debates on the historical sociology of Eastern Europe. The case of Łódź serves the purpose of enriching the typologies and enhancing existing knowledge of the idiosyncratic modernization process that has been variously situated on the center-peripheries axis of the global capitalist system. This is an innovative work. It addresses an important topic in a new, interdisciplinary manner. The main theme will be of considerable interest to the global reader concerned with urban modernity. -- Agnieszka Kolasa Nowak, professor of sociology, Maria Skłodowska Curie University, Lublin
This book moves the capital of the nineteenth century. Paralleling the switch of focus from Baudelairian Paris to industrial Manchester, it places the capital of the Polish nineteenth century in the textile industrial hub—Łódź. This is still a revolutionary gesture within Polish studies. The authors have aptly located their particular case study within a broader framework of modernity studies. Deftly integrating broad historical queries of the daily press and theoretical reasoning, they have succeeded in relating the imaginaries and normative orders present among journalists to the expert discourses and agendas of institutional actors. -- Tomasz Majewski, professor of cultural studies, Jagiellonian University, Cracow