This article critically surveys the current historiography of port cities, which have recently attracted a lot of interest, particularly from global historians of the 19th and early 20th century. The article contextualizes this body of scholarship within larger recent and older trends in the discipline. Recently, historians and other scholars have predominantly analyzed port cities as “nodal points” or “hubs” within global networks. The article argues that these perspectives project spatial patterns defined by the imaginary of globalization today into the past, failing to acknowledge how tightly interwoven globalization and urbanization were in port cities during the age of steam. However, port cities can provide concrete narrative focal points to develop empirically-grounded global histories, and remind us of the various efforts to control, limit, or prevent unsolicited forms of mobility and entanglement in the sites where these were moored or fixed. Finally, port cities can render the labor of the urban masses visible that facilitated the making of steam age connectivity and a globality anchored in the urban space of the ports.

中文翻译：

---

系泊机动性，固定流量：迈向蒸汽时代港口城市的全球城市史

本文批判性地考察了港口城市的当前历史学，这些历史学最近引起了很多兴趣，尤其是 19 世纪和 20 世纪初的全球历史学家。这篇文章将这一学术团体置于该学科近期和更古老的更大趋势中。最近，历史学家和其他学者主要将港口城市分析为全球网络中的“节点”或“枢纽”。文章认为，这些观点将当今全球化想象所定义的空间模式投射到过去，未能承认在蒸汽时代的港口城市中全球化和城市化是多么紧密地交织在一起。然而，港口城市可以提供具体的叙事焦点来发展以经验为基础的全球历史，并提醒我们控制、限制、或防止在这些停泊或固定地点的主动形式的移动和纠缠。最后，港口城市可以让城市群众的劳动可见，这促进了蒸汽时代的连通性和以港口城市空间为基础的全球化。