A review by taffy_sea
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz
3.0
3.5-4 stars— It’s deeply interesting to think about what different cities looked like and how people experienced life in them, across the globe and throughout time. My imagination caught, again and again, at the alien and yet recognizable scenes of urban life depicted in Lost Cities.
Well researched and delivered in a friendly, easy-to digest manner, Lost Cities pushes back on common assumptions and colonialist myths of past civilizations.
Speculation is both a strength and a weakness of this book, as Annalee Newitz’s imagination invites the reader in to see and feel ordinary life in cities long since dissolved, while also making frequent leaps into the “whys” of urban construction and decline that would probably prompt academic pearl-clutching. I’m pleased to have read this; I learned quite a bit and am walking away from the book with tons of answer-less questions.
Well researched and delivered in a friendly, easy-to digest manner, Lost Cities pushes back on common assumptions and colonialist myths of past civilizations.
Speculation is both a strength and a weakness of this book, as Annalee Newitz’s imagination invites the reader in to see and feel ordinary life in cities long since dissolved, while also making frequent leaps into the “whys” of urban construction and decline that would probably prompt academic pearl-clutching. I’m pleased to have read this; I learned quite a bit and am walking away from the book with tons of answer-less questions.