I learned to dig as a teenager in the school holidays and studied the ancient world at Oxford and Cambridge before beginning my career as a university teacher. I have been lucky enough to travel all over the world for my work, and have spent time living in some amazing cities including Paris, London, Madrid, and Rome. I love exploring new urban landscapes from Moscow to Lusaka, Såo Paulo to Toronto and I am looking forward this summer to moving to another great metropolis, Los Angeles.
I wrote...
The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History
By
Greg Woolf
What is my book about?
The growth of cities around the world in the last two centuries is the greatest episode in our urban history, but it is not the first. Three thousand years ago most of the Mediterranean basin was a world of villages; a world without money or writing, without temples for the gods or palaces for the mighty. Over the centuries that followed, however, cities appeared in many places around the Inland Sea, built by Greeks and Romans, and also by Etruscans and Phoenicians, Tartessians and Lycians, and many others. Most were tiny by modern standards, but they were the building blocks of all the states and empires of antiquity. The greatest--Athens and Corinth, Syracuse and Marseilles, Alexandria and Ephesus, Persepolis and Carthage, Rome and Byzantium--became the powerhouses of successive ancient societies, not just political centers but also the places where ancient art and literatures were created and accumulated. And then, half way through the first millennium, most withered away, leaving behind ruins that have fascinated so many who came after.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Cities: The First 6,000 Years
By
Monica L. Smith
Why this book?
An exciting overview of one of THE big themes of world history, an anthropological essay that draws on urban traditions from five continents. It is really good on the materiality of cities, everything from how they were built and where they get their food to what happens to their garbage. A great balance too between the huge variety of cities and what we today can learn from early urbanism.
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The Ancient City
By
Arjan Zuiderhoek
Why this book?
Historians of Greece and Rome have been arguing about how to describe ancient cities on and off since the eighteenth century and some of their debates have got stuck deep in the mud. This little book offers the best way out of these impasses. It is super clear, really up to date and incorporates the very latest research. Especially good on economy and society.
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Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present
By
Andrew Shryock,
Daniel Lord Smail
Why this book?
Most historians work on a few decades of the past, and even ancient historians rarely move beyond two or three centuries, but this amazing collection asks us to think about how themes like language and trade and kinship and residence look if we consider them over the last 40,000 years. Each chapter is written by a team of researchers from different disciplines. Often they have to start by creating a common language. But the results are truly eye-opening. So many familiar themes will never look quite the same again.
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Rome (Oxford Archaeological Guides)
By
Amanda Claridge
Why this book?
I am a Roman historian and spend as much time as I can in the eternal city. This is absolutely the best guidebook. Amanda lived in Rome for many years, knows every fragment of ancient architecture, and is fantastic at explaining the most complicated ruins. The book is short enough to carry with you everywhere and is full of wonderful maps and plans. Absolutely essential.
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Invisible Cities
By
Italo Calvino
Why this book?
Invisible Cities was first published in Italian in 1972 and is a classic work of fiction. The setting is a set of conversations between the Venetian merchant Marco Polo and the Mongol Emperor of China, Kublai Khan. Polo describe strange and wonderful cities he has visited on his travels (or has he? Because so many of the cities are bizarre, unreal and compelling). Each short description is like a poem, and together they raise questions of memory and perspective, of the power of our preconceptions to shape what we see, and the power of words to capture the essence of the city. Spellbinding.
