- Hardcover: 1169 pages
- Publisher: Pantheon Books (Dec 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0394587324
- ISBN-13: 978-0394587325
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16.5 x 6.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,278,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Ranging over 2,500 years, Cities in Civilization is a tribute to the city as the birthplace of Western civilization. Drawing on the contributions of economists and geographers, of cultural, technological, and social historians, Sir Peter Hall examines twenty-one cities at their greatest moments. Hall describes the achievements of these golden ages and outlines the precise combinations of forces -- both universal and local -- that led to each city's belle epoque.
Hall identifies four distinct expressions of civic innovation: artistic growth, technological progress, the marriage of culture and technology, and solutions to evolving problems. Descriptions of Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan London, and nineteenth-century Vienna bring to life those seedbeds of artistic and intellectual creativity. Explorations of Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, of Henry Ford's Detroit, and of Palo Alto at the dawn of the computer age highlight centers of technological advances. Tales of the creation of Los Angeles' movie industry and the birth of the blues and rock 'n' roll in Memphis depict the marriage of culture and technology.
Finally, Hall celebrates cities that have been forced to solve problems created by their very size. With Imperial Rome came the apartment block and aqueduct; nineteenth-century London introduced policing, prisons, and sewers; twentieth-century New York developed the skyscraper; and Los Angeles became the first city without a center, a city ruled instead by the car. And in a fascinating conclusion, Hall speculates on urban creativity in the twenty-first century.
This penetrating study reveals not only the lives of cities but also the lives of the people who built them and created the civilizations within them. A decade in the making, Cities in Civilization is the definitive account of the culture of cities.
Hall identifies four distinct expressions of civic innovation: artistic growth, technological progress, the marriage of culture and technology, and solutions to evolving problems. Descriptions of Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan London, and nineteenth-century Vienna bring to life those seedbeds of artistic and intellectual creativity. Explorations of Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, of Henry Ford's Detroit, and of Palo Alto at the dawn of the computer age highlight centers of technological advances. Tales of the creation of Los Angeles' movie industry and the birth of the blues and rock 'n' roll in Memphis depict the marriage of culture and technology.
Finally, Hall celebrates cities that have been forced to solve problems created by their very size. With Imperial Rome came the apartment block and aqueduct; nineteenth-century London introduced policing, prisons, and sewers; twentieth-century New York developed the skyscraper; and Los Angeles became the first city without a center, a city ruled instead by the car. And in a fascinating conclusion, Hall speculates on urban creativity in the twenty-first century.
This penetrating study reveals not only the lives of cities but also the lives of the people who built them and created the civilizations within them. A decade in the making, Cities in Civilization is the definitive account of the culture of cities.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is extraordinary for its pure breadth of intellect coupled with a writing style that draws the reader in to make the hundreds of pages pass by like mileposts on an uncongested freeway.
As the trend to narrow, boring, specialization turns academia into a wasteland, Sir Peter has no qualms about weaving together his extraodinary knowledge of history, social science, literature, performing arts, technology -- you name it, he is able to show insight about it. All of this comes together in a natural way to reveal the nature of that special creativity that emerges from cities, and which has made cities special in our civilization.
The author is a keen observer, and there is something new, unexpected, and intriguing at every turn. Indeed, I have to blame Sir Peter for far too many sleepless nights as I lay in bed helpless to put down this magnetic book, which shows and imparts that very pleasure in learning that accompanied periods which have made cities great.
This is a book of a century, and should be read by everyone, but no student of cities, urban studies, geography, history, or social sciences should be without it.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
May I agree wholeheartedly on every single point with the previous reviewer! I cannot recall the last time I was so excited about a book. In every single way 'Cities in Civilization' fires the imagination. It is an absolute goldmine of facts and anecdotes that stretch across the globe, and across the history of civilization. Every chapter reads like a novel whilst at the same time offering insights into a wider variety of academic disciplines than you are ever likely to encounter in another book, including philosophy, engineering, art history, literature, construction, military history and information technology. There is a continual sense throughout though of the author's guiding hand, and a awareness that every single fact is being introduced to paint a wider picture that will indeed increase your understanding not just of the world we live in, but of how it came about, and where it is headed. So many of the predictions in the final chapter, written in the late 1990's, have now proved to be true. Written at a time when I, for one, did not yet have an e-mail account, Peter Hall was already talking of how applications would increasingly become digital, and that many of them would be multi-functional. As phones, mp3 players, digital televisions and games consoles gradually merge into one, just one of his predictions from 10 years previously - a sidenote, really, to the main story - is obviously becoming true.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
A superb analysis of how cities induce innovation
23 Mar 1999
Format:Hardcover
Do not be put off by a conventional title. Under the appearance of academic urban history this is an account of the urban sources of cultural creativity and technological innovation throughout history, from Athens to Florence, to London, to New York, to Paris, to Los Angeles, to Silicon Valley, and beyond. It deals with art, culture, music, technology, business, power, dreams and nightmares. Wonderfully written by one of the most distinguished urbanists in the world, this book delights, informs, and explains why certain people in certain places create, prosper and enjoy life, and others don't. The best book on cities in many years. Manuel Castells, Berkeley, California
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
The Jacques Barzun of the city
1 April 2002
Format:Hardcover
This book reminds me very much of Jacques Barzun's FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE both in size and scope. Barzun looked at 500 years of Western cultural life and Sir Peter Hall has much the same interests, although he goes back some 2500 years and is more narrowly focused on urban culture. The title CITIES IN CIVILIZATION could be the other way around as Hall is interested in the Golden Ages that seem to have been a feature of all the great cities in history. "The Renaissance" he says "was an urban phenomenon; so was every great burst of creativity in human history." Hall then is seeking the civilization in cities.
Two other books that this one could be (should be, has been) compared with are THE CULTURE OF CITIES and THE CITY IN HISTORY, both by Lewis Mumford. Hall knows this and quickly dispatches the comparisons. "I do not at all share the Mumfordian view that the great city is doomed." Fair enough but his work remains valuable to urban historians and Hall's comment that "Mumford was fundamentally a brilliant polemical journalist, not a scholar" is uncalled for and irrelevant. I'm glad Hall got his academic tetchiness out of the way early and didn't bring it up again, because being subjected to such jibes and digs over the course of the 1000 pages of this book would have been unpleasant. And Hall doesn't need to resort to that anyway.
This book is a detailed, well researched exploration of the unique nature of the city as "a crucible of creativity". The first section of the book looks at artistic creativity - the most recognizable type of Golden Age and most closely associated with the foundation cities of Western civilization - Athens, Vienna, Florence, Paris, London and Berlin. Other themes are innovation and its technological and economic manifestation in urban settings. Here we visit Manchester, Glasgow, Detroit, San Francisco (more accurately Palo Alto and "Silicon Valley") and Tokyo. Hall then looks at two cities - Memphis and Los Angeles that he says offer a mix of artistic, technological, and economic exuberance. He is referring to the music and film industries. In his final section he acknowledges the emergence of regional urban areas and global cities and while recognizing the challenges they pose, he is not daunted and remains optimistic about the future of urban life. His coming Golden Age of a new urban order faces three challenges. That of transport technology and sustainable urbanism, an unequal urban world (the megacities of the Third World) and the threats to economic, family, and civic life.
If persons with interest in any aspect of urbanism don't find some mention of their pet subject in this vast sweep of urban life over the last two millennia, it's simply because they haven't waded through. And that's the only caveat about Hall's work. In the best traditions of old English learning this book is dense and it's not written in the snappiest of prose either. Cities are a testament to the slow processes of humanity. You'll have to rely on one of those tendencies - patience - when working your way through this book. In the end it's well worth it.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A Masterful Historical Study of Majestic Sweep
19 Oct 2001
Format:Hardcover
Peter Hall's book "Cities in Civilization" is a masterful work with majestic sweep. Although not meant for everyone, this book provides insights into history and culture like no other. Hall looks at the golden ages of cities to illuminate their influence on great cultural achievements as well as economic and technological development, and then draws comparisons to discern what it was about these places that enabled them, of all cities, to become what they became at a particular time in history. The creative bursts of classical Athens, Renaissance Florence, and Shakespearean London are thoroughly discussed and utterly fascinating. The music of Vienna and the artistic creativity of late 19th and early 20th century Paris are literal courses on Western culture. The decadence and creative explosion of Weimar Germany is thoroughly explored before Hall turns his attention to industrialization and technology.
Hall is especially good, in the midst of his analysis, at discussing various theories of social change from Marx to Schumpeter, and Weber to Harold Innis. He details the reasons for industrial and technological growth and invention in 18th century Manchester, 19th century Glasgow, and 19th and 20th century Berlin. His discussion of Detroit and Henry Ford is particularly interesting. Silicon Valley and Tokyo are also discussed, and never does Hall loses sight of how their creativity permanently affected human civilization.
His section on "The Marriage of Art and Technology" is fundamental to an understanding of mass culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. Hollywood and "The Delta" region around Memphis are discussed for their impact on movies and popular music. These two sections are utterly fascinating. And his lengthy last section, which some readers may find the least interesting, deals with how many of the world's great cities have adapted to deal with increasing size and changing needs. Here Hall profiles the changes in the cities themselves, as well as changes in the cultural and social environment, of ancient Rome, and modern London, Paris, New York, Los Angelas, and Stockholm. The social experimentation in equality and how it affected housing in Sweden is particularly interesting.
All in all, if you have the stamina to read 1,000 pages you will be served a wonderful course on the development of Western culture and material civilization, as well as gain a fuller appreciation for the role of the great city in history. We are all in Sir Peter's debt for his years of study and the preparation of this book. His erudition and immense learning are greatly appreciated.
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