Cities

February 15, 2019
An archaeologist examines the deep history of the world's cities.The late comedian George Carlin had a routine positing that we need houses to keep all our junk in and that a major torture of going on vacation is to decide what fraction of that junk to take with us. Smith (Anthropology/UCLA; A Prehistory of Ordinary People, 2010, etc.) offers reinforcement for that proposition: "there were only so many things that people could carry around at once," she writes of early human life, "with possessions limited to lightweight, handheld items that were not very visible beyond a small group of people." Enter architecture, which brought humans out of caves and into free-standing structures of various kinds--and then, 6,000 years ago, enter cities, an innovation that brought with them the bad (bureaucracy, crime, epidemic disease) as well as the good. In the author's calculus, the good is weightier than the bad. In the life of villages, things are pretty dull, without much "ethnic or social diversity" and little need for economic ingenuity, with shamans or chiefs living the good life but everyone else toiling away. As Smith notes, archaeological lessons learned from the ancient past, applicable to the present as well, are that "there are always socioeconomic hierarchies." In cities, the demands of social and economic life yield an "upward spiral" that affords diversity and rewards creativity. In its broadest outline, Smith's argument isn't new; Lewis Mumford was making similar observations half a century ago while, in recent years, Richard Florida has taken up the cause of cities as creative engines. Still, her points are well-taken: Cities are "now so widespread that we have a hard time 'unseeing' them from the landscape," and increasingly they have become conurbations, with hundreds of cities, especially in Asia, having attained populations of more than 1 million people and vast metropolitan belts running down river valleys and coastlines.Students of world history, urban studies, economics, and similar fields will find Smith's book to be a thought-provoking, useful survey.

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March 1, 2019
Archaeologists are rewriting urban history. University of California anthropology professor Smith (A Prehistory of Ordinary People, 2010) enthusiastically recounts her work and the findings of colleagues. As they dig to bedrock, making surprising discoveries in each layer of debris, they are overturning past assumptions about the origins and development of cities. For instance, millions of recently uncovered bevel-rim bowls?cheaply made, one-use vessels of baked clay used for fast-food sales in ancient Mesopotamian cities?reveal that consumer waste has always been an urban problem. From this, Smith argues that the strong urge to consume goods brings people and goods to cities, especially in deserts and other places that are unpromising as human habitats. Security, employment, and entertainment are other draws. Few cities ever fail. Despite local environmental challenges, cities, such as water-starved Los Angeles, survive via dramatic civil engineering and by drawing on remote resources. Readers can sense Smith's love of archaeology; her chapter on archaeological methods is especially engaging. An excellent purchase for public libraries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2019

From an anthropological perspective, Smith (anthropology, Univ. of California Los Angeles; A Prehistory of Ordinary People) provides a thorough account of the rise, growth, and resilience of cities from antiquity to modern times. Smith explores and successfully answers her own question, "Why cities?," and shows the social needs, especially those relating to communication and networking, of ensuring a longstanding dependence on congregating within an urban setting. The author compares aspects of modern society such as a middle class, environmental issues, architecture, consumption, and religious needs with their early counterparts, suggesting that clear similarities between those give strong evidence that cities are not only inevitable but a permanent part of the human story. According to Smith, cities "fundamentally reorganized people's relationships to the environment and to each other...." and will continue to do so. VERDICT Smith does a superb job of walking her readers through 6,000 years of the humans interacting with cities; her pervasive comparisons to the modern experience make this a readable work. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in anthropology, archaeology, or history.--Brenna Smeall, Gastonia, NC

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2019

Moving from modern-day Syria's Tell Brak to Mexico's Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan to her own digs in India and embracing the grandly significant Athens, Rome, and Pompeii, UCLA anthropology professor Smith tracks urban growth in the last six millennia. And why is this so important? Urbanization's networked infrastructure has facilitated humanity's flourishing, and more than half the world's population now live in cities.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.