Metropolis
Book description
From the Sunday Times bestselling author, a dazzling, globe-spanning history of humankind's greatest invention: the city.
'Brilliant...enchanting' Evening Standard 'Exhilarating' New York Times
The story of the city is the story of civilisation. From Uruk and Babylon to Baghdad and Venice, and on to London, New York, Shanghai and Lagos,…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Metropolis as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
To understand cities today, you also have to understand why and how they were built to begin with. After all, our environment contains the materialization of previous decisions – we should know why those were made! Through the story of over a dozen global cities, historian Ben Wilson demonstrates how cities are concentrations of hopes, dreams, power, and conflict. While many great historians like Lewis Mumford and Stephen Hall have preceded him with excellently detailed urban history books of their own, this book stands out in its readability, attention to detail, and especially its coverage of global cities. After all,…
From Conrad's list on the exciting life of cities.
The central premise of Metropolis is that cities have been the great incubators of new ideas in politics, religion, and technology. Wilson argues convincingly that cities are humanity’s greatest invention since they created the necessary ingredients to creating most other inventions. He covers dozens of major urban developments from around the world since the dawn of history thousands of years ago. From the world’s first city, Uruk, in present-day Iraq nearly 5000 years ago, we are taken on a tour of fascinating cities that during their heyday were great centers of culture, learning, commerce, science and shows how they contributed…
From Stephen's list on big ideas in world history.
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