The City in History: It's Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects - Hardcover

Mumford, Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436296004 ISBN 13: 9780436296000

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961

Synopsis

Classic text for any architecture aficionado 1961 first edition

About this title

Review:

Lewis Mumford's massive historical study brings together a wide array of evidence--from the earliest group habitats to medieval towns to the modern centers of commerce (as well as dozens of black-and-white illustrations)--to show how the urban form has changed throughout human civilization. His tone is ultimately somewhat pessimistic: Mumford was deeply concerned with what he viewed as the dehumanizing aspects of the metropolitan trend, which he deemed "a world of professional illusionists and their credulous victims." (In another typically unrestrained criticism, he dubbed the Pentagon a Bronze Age monument to humanity's basest impulses, as well as an "effete and worthless baroque conceit.") Mumford hoped for a rediscovery of urban principles that emphasized humanity's organic relationship to its environment. The City in History remains a powerfully influential work, one that has shaped the agendas of urban planners, sociologists, and social critics since its publication in the 1960s.

About the Author:

Lewis Mumford (1895-1979) was the author of numerous important books on American culture, technology, architecture, and urban life, including Technics and Civilization (1934); The Culture of Cities (1938); The City in History (1961); Myth of the Machine I: Technics and Human Development (1967); and Myth of the Machine II: Pentagon of Power (1970).

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt, Brace and World
• Publication date: 1961
• ISBN 10: 0436296004
• ISBN 13: 9780436296000
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 657