Hidden Cities: Urban Space, Geolocated Apps and Public History

In this review of Hidden Cities: Urban Space, Geolocated Apps and Public History in Early Modern Europe the editors offer a thoughtful intersection of digital tools and historical scholarship. This collection is aimed at historians, digital humanists and public history practitioners who want a concrete case study of how smartphone locative apps can reshape site-based research and interpretation. The single biggest reason to read it is its practical combination of original scholarship that underpins app trails with explicit user experience guidelines, making it both a theoretical and applied resource.

Key Features

• Research-led itineraries: Presents original scholarship used to create locative app trails, giving readers transparent evidence for the routes and interpretation.
• Multi-city coverage: Expands beyond an initial case in Renaissance Florence to five additional historic European cities, showing comparative approaches to public history.
• Design guidance: Offers pragmatic user experience recommendations that reconcile researcher aims and public usability for locative apps.
• Medium-focused methodology: Examines how the app medium structures new site-based research questions and interpretive possibilities.
• Public history emphasis: Prioritizes experiences beyond conventional heritage narratives, encouraging inclusive and varied urban stories.

Who It's For

This volume is well suited to academic readers in history and digital humanities, museum professionals, and developers working on geolocated cultural applications who want an evidence-based guide to creating interpretive trails. Its mix of case studies and design guidance helps teams translate archival research into mobile-first public experiences.

Readers seeking a step-by-step app development manual or a general guide to smartphone programming should look elsewhere; the book focuses on interpretive frameworks and scholarly foundations rather than coding tutorials or platform-specific technical instructions.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Clear linkage between archival scholarship and locative app content, supporting research integrity.
• Comparative city projects provide a range of models for public history implementation.
• Practical UX guidance helps balance academic aims with user needs in real deployments.

Cons

• Not a technical development manual, so teams will need separate resources for coding or platform maintenance.

Specifications

Our Verdict

Hidden Cities is a valuable, well-judged resource for historians and cultural institutions exploring locative digital interpretation. Its combination of primary scholarship and practical UX recommendations makes it a useful reference for planning research-led app trails, and it represents good value for teams wanting scholarly rigor alongside public-facing design guidance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this book include examples from multiple cities?
Yes. It begins with Renaissance Florence and expands to case studies from five additional historic European cities.

Will this teach me how to code a locative app?
No. The book focuses on interpretive methodology and UX guidance rather than programming or platform-specific development.

Is the book suitable for museum and public history projects?
Yes. It specifically addresses how to balance researcher aims and user experience for public history implementations.