The Lives of Cities
Do some armchair travelling and learn about the histories and personalities of cities around the world.
Baghdad : city of peace, city of blood--a history in thirteen centuries
Marozzi, Justin, 1970-
2014
For much of its extraordinary life Baghdad, the 'City of Peace' as it has been called almost since its foundation, has been one of the most violent cities on earth. As U.S. troops entered in 2003, they became the latest participants in a turbulent history stretching back to the year 762, when Caliph Mansur's masons laid the first sun-baked bricks of his imperial capital. For 500 years Baghdad was the seat of the Abbasid Empire, a marvel of glittering palaces, magnificent mosques, Islamic colleges and teeming markets watered by the Tigris. This was the city of the mathematician Al Khwarizmi, who invented algebra; of Harun al Rashid, the caliph immortalised in many tales of Baghdad from A Thousand and One Nights; of the great poet Abu Nuwas, whose playful verses scandalised society, and of dozens of other astronomers, doctors, musicians and explorers. A thriving trading emporium and metropolis that attracted merchants from Central Asia to the Atlantic, its economy was the envy of West and East alike.
Berlin : the story of a city
White-Spunner, Barney, author
2021
Berlin is as challenging a city as it is vital, and always has been since its medieval foundation as twin fishing villages. In exploring the fascinating history of this city, discover how a people as civilized and religious as the Germans could have supported the Kaiser and the Nazis as they inflicted such misery upon the entire world.
Cahokia : ancient America's great city on the Mississippi
Pauketat, Timothy R.
2009
Almost a thousand years ago, a Native American city flourished along the Mississippi River near what is now St. Louis. Cahokia was a thriving metropolis at its height, with a population of 20,000, a sprawling central plaza, and scores of spectacular earthen mounds. The city gave rise to a new culture that spread across the plains; yet by 1400 it had been abandoned, leaving only the giant mounds as monuments, and traces of its influence in tribes we know today. Here, anthropologist Timothy R. Pauketat reveals the story of the city and its people as uncovered by American archaeologists. Their excavations have revealed evidence of a powerful society, including complex celestial timepieces, the remains of feasts big enough to feed thousands, and disturbing signs of large-scale human sacrifice. Pauketat provides a comprehensive picture of what's been discovered about Cahokia, and how these findings have challenged our perceptions of Native Americans.--From publisher description.
Cities : the first 6,000 years
Smith, Monica L. (Monica Louise)
2019
Offers an archeological perspective on the history of cities from antiquity to present day, detailing why cities began and the distinctive qualities that make them responsible for the growth of civilization and global economies.
Dodge City : Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the wickedest town in the American West
Clavin, Thomas, author
2017
Four lost cities : a secret history of the urban age
Newitz, Annalee, 1969- author
2021
"A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history--and figure out why people abandoned them. In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyök in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy's southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate."-- Provided by publisher.
Hong Konged : one modern American family's (mis)adventures in the gateway to China
Hanstedt, Paul, 1965-
2012
Horizontal vertigo : a city called Mexico
Villoro, Juan, 1956- author
2021
"Horizontal Vertigo: the title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes, which led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant fl©Øneur, Villoro wanders through the city seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things, while brilliantly drawing connections among them, the better to reveal, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of Mexico City's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today, one of the world's leading cultural and financial centers. In his deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of chapter titles: "Living in the City," "City Characters," "Shocks, Crossings, and Ceremonies." What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City's genius loci, its spirit of place"-- Provided by publisher.
London under
Ackroyd, Peter, 1949-
2011
A wonderful, atmospheric, historical, imaginative, oozing little study of everything that goes on under London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheatres to Victorian sewers and gang hide-outs.
The making of Paris : the story of how Paris evolved from a fishing village into the world's most beautiful city
Kelley, Russell, 1949- author.
2021
"The story of how Paris has evolved over two thousand years from a fishing village into the world's most beautiful city"-- Provided by publisher.
Metropolis : a history of the city, humankind's greatest invention
Wilson, Ben, 1980- author
2020
"From a brilliant young historian, a colourful journey through 7,000 years and twenty-six world cities that shows how urban living has been the spur and incubator to humankind's greatest innovations. In the two hundred millennia of our existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. Ben Wilson, author of bestselling and award-winning books on British history, now tells the grand, glorious story of how city living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning in 5,000 BC with Uruk, the world's first city, immortalized in The Epic of Gilgamesh, he shows us that cities were never a necessity, but that once they existed, their density created such a blossoming of human endeavour--producing new professions, art forms, worship and trade--that they kickstarted civilization itself. Guiding readers through famous cities over 7,000 years, Wilson reveals the innovations driven by each: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in 9th century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris. In the modern age, he studies the impact of verticality in New York City, the sprawl of LA and the eco-reimagining of 21st-century Shanghai. Lively, erudite, page-turning and irresistible, Metropolis is a grand tour of human endeavour."-- Provided by publisher.
St. Petersburg : madness, murder and art on the banks of the Neva
Miles, Jonathan, 1952- author
2018
The storied city : the quest For Timbuktu and the fantastic mission to save its past
English, Charlie, author
2018
The theatre of the world : alchemy, astrology and magic in Renaissance Prague
Marshall, Peter H., 1946-
2006
Venice : pure city
Ackroyd, Peter, 1949-
2009
In this sumptuous vision of Venice, Peter Ackroyd turns his unparalleled skill for evoking a sense of place from London and the River Thames to Venice, the city of myth, mystery and beauty, set like a jewel in its glistening lagoon.