The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities

Stated First Edition. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in AS NEW condition. "With an eye toward the architecture, the art, the literature, and the technology of urban life, one of America's most astute observers of society gives us an incisive study of the search for shelter and the fear of exposure to strangers and new experience in Western culture--and how these two concerns have shaped the physical fabric of the city. 'Why are we afraid of unfamiliar people and scenes?' asks Mr. Sennett, as he explores the development of urban society and structure, from the ancient world to the present. His discussions take us from the assembly hall of Athens to the Palladium Club; from Augustine's City of God to the Turkish baths of the Lower East Side; from eighteenth-century English gardens to the housing projects of East Harlem; from Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy to subway graffiti. At once erudite and intimate, engaging and disturbing, THE CONSCIENCE OF THE EYE is a stunning work on the politics of vision--the way in which we avert our eyes when we encounter the unaccustomed." [jacket copy] THE CONSCIENCE OF THE EYE "seeks to relate architecture, urban planning, and sculpture to the cultural life of cities, from the time of ancient Athens to late 20th-century New York. The author achieves a great deal more, for he offers a broad humanistic reflection on many of the elements that constitute modern culture: literature, spiritual rootlessness, philosophy, music, poetry, ballet, bars, and public baths. The central thesis, that modern humans suffer because of the dichotomy between their subjective private experience and their outside public life, is thoroughly persuasive. Almost every page of this elegantly written work of cultural history contains food for thought, e.g., 'The essence of developing as a human being is developing the capacity for ever more complex experience.'"--Library Journal. Pristine hardcover w/brilliant corners & crisp deckle edges, a square & tight binding, wrapped in a bright & intact jacket. A typically beautiful Knopf production--Quite presentable.…