An important contribution to academic conversations between history, social sciences, and comparative urban studies that explores the effects and limits of public action on urban lives. Examines the limits and effects of public action in urban settings and explores comparisons between cities commonly viewed as incommensurable Integrates historical and ethnographic methods and focuses on state formation, urbanization, and daily lives Addresses debates and controversies in comparative urban studies, history, political science, and urban anthropology Provides a systematic, comparative approach to the practices, processes, arrangements used to create boundaries, direct violence, and produce social, racial, gender, and generational differences