City

A Guidebook for the Urban Age

By: P. D. Smith

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

For the first time in the history of our planet, more than half the population - 3.3 billion people - is now living in cities. City is the ultimate guidebook to our urban centers - the signature unit of human civilization. With erudite prose, this unique work of metatourism explores what cities are and how they work. It covers history, customs and language, districts, transport, money, work, shops and markets, and tourist sites, creating a fantastically detailed portrait of the city through history and into the future.

The urban explorer will revel in essays on downtowns, suburbs, shantytowns and favelas, graffiti, skylines, crime, the theater, street food, sport, eco-cities, and sacred sites, as well as mini essays on the Tower of Babel, flash mobs, ghettos, skateboarding, and SimCity, among many others.

Acclaimed author and independent scholar P. D. Smith explores what it was like to live in the first cities, how they have evolved, and why in the future, cities will play an even greater role in human life.

©2012 P.D. Smith (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

A brief history of humanity up until now!

it lets you think that it is up to us what happens for Humanity. it's really our choice at this point.

Commuters companion

Before buying this book I saw a review describing this book as a "coffee table book" and I cannot think of a better way of describing it. It is no historical thesis; it jumps from topic to topic in time and place - but as long as that's what your expecting it is enjoyable. It is filled with interesting historical and anthropological facts and is an excellent commuters companion.

for all the city dwellers

a complete ode to all the cities with their ups and downs from the first building blocks to the crumbling ruins. i've enjoyed this book from the start to the last word!

Not Right for an Audiobook

This book is well written and contains a lot of interesting facts, but it reads like a coffee table book. The nonlinear randomness of it's construction doesn't work well for a cover to cover read and there's little to propel you from one chapter to the next. These problems, though, are at least somewhat ameliorated by the narrator's amazing voice.

Worth it

I am a architecture student and found this book to be extremely informative. Anyone who is interested In architecture needs this book in there stable.