Monica L. Smith (1)

As an overview of the historical growth of cities and how they are a reflection of who we are as a species, this book does an okay job. The author was at her best when she specifically talked about digs she either conducted or participated in and explained examples of what archaeologists discovered that were relevant to the subject to the chapter.

For example, there is a chapter called "The Harmony of Consumption", a chapter that discusses consumption, trash, waste and pollution both in ancient times and modern. She specifically talks about the Mesopotamian bevel-rimmed bowls and how it was the "ancient equivalent of the polystyrene cup" and that archaeologists have found millions of these bowls. They were easily produced out of clay, used for however long they lasted and then thrown away.

Archaeologists often have to dig through layers and layers of bowl shards in digs in the middle east in order to get to anything that is not one of these bevel-rimmed bowls (brb). Often they will have to abandon a dig in one area because there are so many broken bowls and shards. Digging and cataloging piles and piles of brbs can consume a whole dig season and the archaeologists are left with very little to show for it.

This was interesting to me because she also pointed out how most of what you see in a museum is the interesting and pretty stuff which is only a tiny fraction of what might be found at any given dig site. This was probably intuitive if I had thought about it but I had a bit of an a-ha moment when I read this.

I give this as an example because she later spends a lot of time giving her thoughts on human consumption and trash and I feel she glosses over the problem of human consumption and the ultimate disposal of what is consumed. She sort of dismisses the whole idea of recycling and describes human consumption and trash as something to celebrate..."While today the ecologically minded among us cringe at the quantity of trash that we seem to generate even when we attempt to adhere to a reduce-reuse-recycle mantra, we should instead view trash not as an embarrassment but as a celebration."

There is a lot of philosophical prose in this book regarding cities and the chapter I note above is not the only chapter where I felt she took pains to avoid the negative aspects of the growth of cities. She has obviously done a lot of reading in sociology, psychology, economics and other fields that are not necessarily her expertise. I don't necessarily disagree with all of her conclusions but there were many times while reading this book that I thought she was a bit full of shit.… (altro)