Cities

The First 6,000 Years

By: Monica L. Smith

Narrated by: Monica L. Smith

"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.

Interesting

Cities have been around for roughly 6,000 years, and Smith leads the reader through a discussion of what makes them cities, how we learn about them, how they have impacted our development and our culture, and what's likely to become of cities in the future. It's an interesting read.

The continuation and growth of ancient cities.

A interesting anti societal collapse perspective. I liked about 84 percent of it. A tinge of liberal focus areas, but I survived it.

I learned a lot

The style is s bit too chatty for my taste and i would have preferred more details but it was a good effort to portray an entity we all think we know through the eyes of an
archeologist.

Well researched book.

The book is consistent and reveals interesting patterns in the evolution of cities. Bear in mind this comes from an archaeological perspective, so it doesn't go into deep discussions about history or technology. However, it is was a great read after too many books that are more opinionated (like Harari's).

Ambitious but Limited

A lot of very interesting ideas, but neither the information or history is very deep or compelling.