"Hristo Boev's book, based on his dissertation research, is an interdisciplinary approach to London and New York in two distinct historical moments of these cities, which, however, share modernity as the common feature and the writings of Charles Dickens and John Dos Passos as the reviewed texts. By applying social, economic and cultural models of urban analysis to the two writers' fiction, the author manages to unveil new dimensions of the 'modern' and to offer fresh readings of the literary texts." (Professor PhD Adina Ciugureanu)