Cities
The First 6,000 Years
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- 14,99 €
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- 14,99 €
Publisher Description
A FASCINATING INVESTIGATION INTO THE HISTORY OF CITIES: WHY DID THEY OCCUR, HOW HAVE THEY EVOLVED, WHY DO SO MANY OF US CHOOSE TO LIVE IN THEM AND HOW DO THEY AFFECT US?
‘Monica Smith is the person best qualified to write a book about the big problems raised by the increasing concentration of the human population into cities. She also has a gift for vivid writing that will make the science of cities come to life for the broad public. I expect that CITIES will be a great read and will sell well.’
Jared Diamond, author of Collapse
Over half of the world’s population lives in an urban area and cities around the globe are getting bigger and bigger. Love them or hate them, more and more of us are choosing to live in them.
Cities investigates the following intriguing questions: why did cities start to occur around 6,000 years ago, how have they evolved, why do so many of us choose to live in them, how do they affect us, and what does the future hold at a time when we’re increasingly connected by technology?
In Cities, Monica L. Smith points out that, even if you don’t live in a city, your life is inevitably affected by one, whether you commute into one for work, sell coffee beans to a company that supplies urban coffee shops, or host city-dwelling tourists seeking adventure and respite from the city in your remote village.
Using fascinating anecdotes and research findings from her work as an archaeologist, Smith also reveals that many of the problems that we associate with modern cities (violence, hyperconsumption, etc.) have, in fact, always existed. And, more positively, how many of the things that draw us to cities in modern times (educational and economic opportunities, social mobility, culture) are the things that have drawn us to them since they first appeared.
She also makes the controversial argument that it’s down to cities that the middle class exists and she examines why social movements flourish in cities in a way they rarely do in rural settings.
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the cultural phenomenon of cities through time in this enjoyable, humorous combination of archeological findings, historical documents, and present-day experiences.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.)