The city's development from ancient times to the modern age. Winner of the National Book Award. "One of the major works of scholarship of the twentieth century" (Christian Science Monitor). Index; illustrations.
The City: A World History depicts the rise of urban centers from the middle of the fourth century BCE to the early twenty-first century. It begins in the ancient Near East, and traces urban growth and its effects throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
"The growth of Northeast Baltimore illustrates the American transition from settlement to suburb. Here we witness a model that has played out again and again on this continent. By revealing the unseen layers of a rich history, Eric Holcomb presents the features of this model that are unique to this corner of the world. It is a specific and loving portrait."—from the foreword by Kathleen G. Kotarba Northeast Baltimore has undergone a transformation from a rural area into a "city suburb," an experience shared by many similar U.S. metropolitan areas. Eric L. Holcomb traces this prototypical process from the region’s origins as a hunting ground of the Susquehannocks, through its earliest settlement by Europeans in the eighteenth century and its idealization as a picturesque landscape during the nineteenth century, to its rise as a suburb in the twentieth century. Holcomb’s obvious passion for the area, combined with his thorough research in geographic indicators such as land ownership patterns, provide a lush empirical foundation for this richly illustrated history.