Named after a Weimar-era play by Bertolt Brecht, In the Jungle of Cities is a home for the odds and ends of writing, ideas, photographs and other ephemera that I create and collect. Most of what’s here relates in some way or another to urban history and urban culture, and especially that which is associated with European cities in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Subscribers to In the Jungle of Cities can expect to received new essays published fortnightly, made available for free both here and on my Substack site.

About me

I hold a PhD in History of Art from the University of Glasgow. My thesis explored the art and architecture of Berlin’s working-class districts during the Weimar Republic, and was supported by a DAAD one-year scholarship.

In my working life I am a digital heritage collections professional. I currently look after the digital collections of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Library in London. Previously, I worked at the British Library, first on the Qatar Digital Library project, and then on the Library’s Discovering Sacred Texts digital learning project. Other roles have included working as a Curatorial Consultant for Msheireb Museums in Doha, Qatar, and as the Digitisation Coordinator for the Royal Academy Of Music’s library and museum.

You can find my writing on the British Library’s website and blogs, the Qatar Digital Library, and elsewhere online, including the Public Domain Review and Slow Travel Berlin. An up-to-date list of my published writing can be found here.

If you’d like to get in touch with me please use my website contact form.

Mark Hobbs, January 2025.