This book tells the story of German cities' metamorphoses from walled to defortified places between 1689 and 1866.

Yair Mintzker is Assistant Professor of European History at Princeton University. His PhD dissertation won the Elizabeth Spilman Rosenfield Prize of Stanford's Department of History in 2009 and the Friends of the German Historical Institute's Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize in 2010. His articles have been published in History of European Ideas and Reflexions historiques.

Part I. Beginnings, 1689-1789: 1. The city and its walls; 2. The French model and the German case, 1689-1789; Part II. A Perfect Storm, 1791-1815: 3. The great defortification surge, 1791-1815; 4. The road to Lunéville, 1791-1801; 5. Collapse, 1801-15; Part III. After the Deluge, 1815-66: 6. Restoration's boundaries: fortress, hometown, metropolis, 1815-48; 7. A modern city, 1848-66.