Cities
The First 6,000 Years
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Publisher Description
"A revelation of the drive and creative flux of the metropolis over time."--Nature
"This is a must-read book for any city dweller with a voracious appetite for understanding the wonders of cities and why we're so attracted to them."--Zahi Hawass, author of Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt
A sweeping history of cities through the millennia--from Mesopotamia to Manhattan--and how they have propelled Homo sapiens to dominance.
Six thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and that number is growing. Weaving together archeology, history, and contemporary observations, Monica Smith explains the rise of the first urban developments and their connection to our own. She takes readers on a journey through the ancient world of Tell Brak in modern-day Syria; Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan in Mexico; her own digs in India; as well as the more well-known Pompeii, Rome, and Athens. Along the way, she presents the unique properties that made cities singularly responsible for the flowering of humankind: the development of networked infrastructure, the rise of an entrepreneurial middle class, and the culture of consumption that results in everything from take-out food to the tell-tale secrets of trash.
Cities is an impassioned and learned account full of fascinating details of daily life in ancient urban centers, using archaeological perspectives to show that the aspects of cities we find most irresistible (and the most annoying) have been with us since the very beginnings of urbanism itself. She also proves the rise of cities was hardly inevitable, yet it was crucial to the eventual global dominance of our species--and that cities are here to stay.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Archaeologist and anthropologist Smith traces the cultural phenomenon of cities through time in this enjoyable, humorous combination of archeological findings, historical documents, and present-day experiences. She argues that city life has been remarkably consistent across millennia proximity to strangers, big public squares and winding residential streets, housing shortages, landfills, markets, and graffiti were as much a part of ancient city life as of modern. (This leads to an odd dismissiveness about problems such as subpar housing conditions and environmental damage caused by urban living, which may put off some readers.) She also compares cities to that other ubiquitous, complex structure that sprang into existence and quickly became essential: the internet. She outlines the cultural precursors to the conception of cities (language, a history of migration, dependence on objects, and a drive to build architecture); explains the excavation of ancient cities; describes how the efficiencies of city life led to the development of a proto middle class; notes the development cities pushed in water, waste, and land management; and argues that, despite worries about collapse, cities are here to stay. Smith writes conversationally and supplies charming details, such as the ancient Mesopotamian belief in Shulak, a disease-spreading toilet demon. For readers who don't mind a detached view of urban problems, this is a thoroughly enjoyable excavation.)
