Cities and People: A Social and Architectural History

Rating:
Summary: Odd Title, Great Book
Review: Cities and People: A Social and Architectural History is not about cities throughout the world, it does not begin with the start of urbanization thousands of years ago, nor does it examine any one city from its origin to the present. Instead the book is a social-architectural history of European urbanization over the past thousand years. The last century and a half occurs in the U.S. The story never lingers long on any city, but shifts as changes in transportation, manufacturing and commerce alter the leading edge of urban development. What Cities and People does do, it does superbly well. Its large format (8x11) and glossy paper with pictures on nearly every page make this book a pleasure to read and view. The hundreds of reproductions of paintings, drawings, and maps plus numerous pictures of surviving building bring to life the story presented in the text. The focus on building and other structures is not on architecture as such, but on structures as physical manifestations of and clues to urban life, the work and leisure of people. The book enables readers to begin "seeing" the past in surviving landscape features. The author's graceful and confident writing style nicely complements the well-chosen graphics and makes this book a most informative and enjoyable read.