Book Rec of the Day 2/13/2007

HISTORIES

Kotkin, a planning consultant and journalist, boils 7,000 years of history into some 200 pages in his neat survey of cities. What makes a city work? What makes it fail? How important are sacred spaces? And how do politics give them shape? A wonderful, brief primer whose only failing might be that it leaves readers wanting more.

THE CITY: A GLOBAL HISTORY, by Joel Kotkin (Modern Library Chronicles, 2005)

Learn more about Kotkin’s work at his Web site: www.joelkotkin.com.