Cities by John Reader

Cities by John Reader, the acclaimed historian attempts to dive readers deep into the territory of urban historians, depicting and analyzing the greatest cities of planet earth. From the earliest examples of cities to the ultra modern cities, 7000-9000 years later, of Mumbai or Tokyo, Reader paints the picture loud and clear. Cities around the globe are home to half of the entire planets population! Those living in cities, consume nearly 75% of all natural resources in the entire world. From the ruins of the earliest cities to the present, Reader will explore how cities develop and thrive, how they can decline and die, how they remake themselves. In the beginning of chapter two, Reader states, “The first cities are said to have arisen from rural communities whose intensified farming practices produced surpluses large enough to free craft workers and other specialists from working on the land (Reader 10).” With that being said, the first cities were basically an intensification of agriculture. He starts with extreme detail describing the “oldest-known cities” from around 9000 years ago. Starting with the claimed first city Çatal Hüyük. This was a large Turkish neolithic site, has been described as the world's first city. Stretching back over 9000 years, at times up to 10,000 people might have lived there. As Reader stated, the site was discovered in 1958 by the British archaeologist James Mellaart. He was unsure in categorizing Catal Huyuk as a city or a town. From what we think as of a city today, like New York or Paris, classifying Catal Huyuk as a city can be difficult. Catal Huyuk was a settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC. Certainly it is a site of immense historic and social...

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...ns how it was defeated in Europe. Instead, Reader goes on to talk about doctors and hospitals, which really draws readers away from the text. There is also a chapter on Hiroshima, which begins well enough and promises to hold interest. Questions like how did people live there after the bomb or how the city was rebuilt are questions that readers would love to be answered but reader fails to do so. He goes on to talk about solar energy directly after the bombing of Hiroshima. There’s no real connection there.

Works Cited

"Metropolis." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 11 Sept. 2004. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.

"Cities." Kirkus Review. N.p., 1 Sept. 2005. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.

"Cities." Goodreads. N.p., 1 Sept. 2005. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

"Cities: Book Summary and Reviews of Cities by John Reader." BookBrowse.com. N.p., Sept. 2005. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.