''The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects'' is a 1961 National Book Award winner by American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a w ...

. It was first published by

Harcourt, Brace & World Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...

( New York).

Synopsis

Mumford argues for a world not in which technology rules, but rather in which it achieves a balance with nature. His ideal vision is what can be described as an "organic city," where culture is not usurped by technological innovation but rather thrives with it. Mumford contrasts these cities with those constructed around wars, tyrants, poverty, etc. However, the book is not an attack on the city, but rather an evaluation of its growth, how it came to be, and where it is heading, as evidenced by the final chapter "Retrospect and Prospect." Mumford notes apologetically in his preface that his "method demands personal experience and observation," and that therefore he has "confined imelf as far as possible to cities and regions

e is E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plur ...

acquainted with at first hand."

,
The City in History
' San Diego, Harcourt Inc, 1961; p. XI

Style

Mumford's florid writing style is also "organic" compared to the cold, mechanical style of many history texts. Stylistically, his works are full of metaphors and similes, as well as quotations from famous novelists, giving his prose shades of poetry. He refers to such texts as '' Great Expectations'' and '' Hard Times'', sometimes using citations to illustrate to the reader what life was like during the industrial era and the city in which Dickens lived. Articles have been written on Mumford's use of metaphors and how his works can often be read as "fiction," in the sense that they have narrative flow. That is evident in this book, in which, instead of a human protagonist on which the story centers, we have the city and its growth in a quasi-''

bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is import ...

'' fashion.

Editions

*Hardcover, MJF Books (August 1997) *Paperback, Harvest Books (October 1968)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:City in History, The 1961 non-fiction books Books about urbanism Books by Lewis Mumford History books about cities