The City Throughout History - Its Origins, Transformations and Future

Should we be surprised that there is always an urban design at the center of utopias? This is not surprising, considering the processes mediated by the city, the functions it performs and its effects on human life. Of course, the city is not just about material structures. In addition to being the largest social unit with physical integrity and concreteness, the city is both the creator and the node of a wide network of social relations. Unlike the nomad's winter camp and the village, it is the place where people come face to face with "those who are not like themselves", "strangers", establish relationships and live together. In Rousseau's words, "houses make up the village and town, and the citizens make up the city". So, it is no wonder that those who attempt to dream of a better world, from Plato to Thomas More, from Fourier to today, begin to draw a city while concretizing and detailing their dreams. Perhaps one should be surprised at the relative paucity of theoretical research on the city. The masterpiece of American thinker Lewis Mumford, who worked in a wide range of fields ranging from urban planning to culture and art history, from technology to social criticism, is the first and giant step towards meeting this need. In this book, Mumford writes both the history of the evolution of cities and a history of civilization with the city as its focal point. By tracing the city's creative and destructive possibilities back to prehistory, he takes the reader from Mesopotamia and Egypt, through Greece, Rome and the Middle Ages, through the capitals of European monarchies and industrial cities, and brings him to the crossroads of today's world. If one aspect of this history is that man establishes an order with "others" and creates a law, and releases a tremendous creative energy thanks to cooperation and division of labor; Power, war, hierarchy and excessive professional specialization constitute the other, dark side of the same history. The neolithic city with its temple, castle and walls, as well as today's amorphous city, whose center is blocked by congestion and spread out with its suburbs on all four sides, have these two faces. However, today's city, which has increased its creative and destructive powers many times over, is both on the verge of social disintegration and carries the risk of upsetting the ecological system of an entire planet, with its organic expansion that knows no boundaries. The City Throughout History is a book that invites people to think, discuss and take a stand at this crossroads where opportunities and risks have gained enormous dimensions. The City Throughout History is not just urban history; It is also a high-level moral philosophy and a kind of tragedy. The New York Times Book Review Over the course of a generation, Lewis Mumford has produced a body of cultural criticism unlike any before. Mumford's perspective was broad yet profound; The author examined the origins as well as the dynamics of technology, art and national politics, but always remained faithful to general ideas; He concentrated his attention on America, but each page of his works expressed the common-sense and passionate concerns of a world citizen.
-Waldo Frank, Saturday Review-
(From the Promotional Bulletin)



Number of Pages: 736

Year of Printing: 2013


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Print Year: 2007

Language Turkish