Cities - Softcover

Reader, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009928426X ISBN 13: 9780099284260

Publisher: Vintage Books, 2005

Synopsis

A magisterial study of the city from its beginnings to the mega-conurbations of today.

Cities is a fascinating exploration of the nature of the city and city life, of its structures, development and inhabitants.

From the ruins of the earliest cities to the present, John Reader explores how cities coalesce, develop and thrive, how they can decline and die, how they remake themselves. He investigates their parasitic relationship with the countryside around them, the webs of trade and immigration they rely upon to survive, how they feed and water themselves and dispose of their wastes. The book is a sweeping exploration of what the city is and has been, fit to stand alongside Lewis Mumford’s 1962 classic The City in History.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

A magisterial exploration of the nature of the city from its beginnings to contemporary Cairo, the largest city the world has known.

In his new book, an exploration of the city's functions and forms, John Reader grounds his work in broad-based research into the city's achievements and problems and makes extraordinary and thought-provoking connections as to the nature of cities, old and new.

From the ruins of the earliest cities to the present, Reader explores how they develop and thrive, how they can remake themselves, and how they can decline and die. He investigates their parasitic relationship with the countryside around them, the webs of trade and immigration they inhabit, how they feed and water themselves and dispose of their wastes. He focuses as much on Baron Haussman's creation of the Paris sewers as of his plans for the grand boulevards, on prostitution as on government, on human lives as on architecture, on markets as on cathedrals.

In this sweeping exploration of what the city is and has been, The Anatomy of the City is fit to stand alongside Lewis Mumford's 1962 classic The City in History.

About the Author:

John Reader is an author and photojournalist. He holds an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at University College London and is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Royal Geographic Society.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 009928426X
• ISBN 13: 9780099284260
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384