Introduction: The Continent of Urban Planning and Its Changing Historiography

In no other continent did urban planning - together with the subsequent addition of the scales of spatial planning - make such an impact in the 20th century as in Europe. The diversity of the countries in Europe, the second-smallest continent, and at the same time the relational proximity of their cultures, but also significant parallels - partially time-shifted - in their social development, promoted the emerging of a network of experts and institutions. Since the 1970s at the latest, Anglo-Saxon planning historiography has been the only one with an almost worldwide presence. This chapter recalls some of the functions that planning historiography assumes, or can assume, in societal reality. A certain discomfort regarding the Anglo-Saxon bias in planning historiography developed - although at first still diffuse - in professional circles at the latest following the appearance of an important and much read anthology published by Robert Freestone in 2000.