Description

"Church and State in the City" provides the first comprehensive analysis of the cityOCOs long debate about the public interest. Historian William Issel explores the complex ways that the San Francisco Catholic ChurchOCoand its lay men and womenOCodeveloped relationships with the local businesses, unions, other community groups, and city government to shape debates about how to define and implement the common good. IsselOCOs deeply researched narrative also sheds new light on the cityOCOs socialists, including Communist Party activistsOCothe most important transnational challengers of both capitalism and Catholicism during the twentieth century.

Moreover, "Church and State in the City" is revisionist in challenging the notion that the history of urban politics and policy can best be understood as the unfolding of a progressive, secular modernization of urban political culture. Issel shows how tussles over the public interest in San Francisco were both distinctive to the city and shaped by its American character.

In the series Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy, edited by Zane L. Miller, David Stradling, and Larry Bennett