The City
Joel Kotkin, The City: A Global History (Modern Library, 2006)
Summary: Highly readable and concise. A truly impressive interweaving of history and politics, economics and culture—all in service to the task of telling the story of "the city" from ancient times to the present. We see classical cities, commercial cities, megacities, and industrial cities. Prompts, if not forces, us to think about what every city is and needs.
Key Quote: "Cities can thrive only by occupying a sacred place that both orders and inspires the complex natures of gathered masses of people. For five thousand years or more, the human attachment to cities has served as the primary forum for political and material progress. It is in the city this ancient confluence of the sacred, safe, and busy, where humanity's future will be shaped for centuries to come." - p. 160
Bottom Line: Read this book if you live in a city, have been to a city, or would ever conceivably set foot near a city at any point in your entire life.
