Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities is a world historical global study of white people's efforts to divide cities into separate, unequal, and compulsory zones for different "races." Its central question is this: why did such efforts multiply so profusely, beginning in a few European colonial outposts in Asia during the 1700s, then spreading to cities on almost all continents of the world by the early 1900s? The argument focuses on the far-reaching actions of three different institutions: imperial governments, cross-oceanic networks of intellectuals and urban reformers, and international markets in urban land. These institutions imported and exported the political influence, the people, the innovations in racial theory, the money, and the specific policy tools needed to segregate an enormous diversity of cities and towns. Anti-racist movements of the mid-twentieth century weakened this segregationist juggernaut, but its legacies live on in the multiply fragmented cities of our own time.

Carl Nightingale's first book On the Edge: A History of Poor Black Children and Their American Dreams was runner-up for the Harry Chapin Media Award as Best Book on Poverty in 1993. Since then he has published extensively on the subject of the transnational contexts of American urban poverty and racial segregation. His publications have appeared in edited volumes and journals such as the Journal of Urban History, the Journal of Social History, and the American Historical Review. His work has taken him to archives across the United States and to South Africa, Europe, and India. He has also taught in the field of world history for over a decade. His current project Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities brings together many of these interests. In addition, He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.