"Lively and provocative... A stunning critique of the definition of community common in twentieth-century theory... Graceful and intelligent throughout."

-- American Historical Review

The Johns Hopkins University Press Web Site, July, 2000

Did urbanization kill `community' in the nineteenth century, or even earlier? In this highly regarded volume Bender argues not only that community survived the trials of industrialization and urbanization but that it remains a fundamental element of American society today.