The dramatic story of the rise and collapse of Europe's first great urban experiment The growth of cities around the world in the last two centuries is the greatest episode in our urban history, but it is not the first. Three thousand years ago most of the Mediterranean basin was a world of villages; a world without money or writing, without temples for the gods or palaces for the mighty. Over the centuries that followed, however, cities appeared in many places around the Inland Sea, built by Greeks and Romans, and also by Etruscans and Phoenicians, Tartessians and Lycians, and many others. Most were tiny by modern standards, but they were the building blocks of all the states and empires of antiquity. The greatest--Athens and Corinth, Syracuse and Marseilles, Alexandria and Ephesus, Persepolis and Carthage, Rome and Byzantium--became the powerhouses of successive ancient societies, not just political centers but also the places where ancient art and literatures were created and accumulated. And then, half way through the first millennium, most withered away, leaving behind ruins that have fascinated so many who came after. Based on the most recent historical and archaeological evidence, The Life and Death of Ancient Cities provides a sweeping narrative of one of the world's first great urban experiments, from Bronze Age origins to the demise of cities in late antiquity. Greg Woolf chronicles the history of the ancient Mediterranean city, against the background of wider patterns of human evolution, and of the unforgiving environment in which they were built. Richly illustrated, the book vividly brings to life the abandoned remains of our ancient urban ancestors and serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of even the mightiest of cities.

Well illustrated with nearly 300 line drawings, maps and photographs, Ancient Cities surveys the cities of the ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Greek and Roman worlds from an archaeological perspective, and in their cultural and historical contexts. Covering a huge area geographically and chronologically, it brings to life the physical world of ancient city dwellers by concentrating on evidence recovered by archaeological excavations from the Mediterranean basin and south-west Asia Examining both pre-Classical and Classical periods, this is an excellent introductory textbook for students of classical studies and archaeology alike.

This book provides a survey of modern debates on Greek and Roman cities, and a sketch of the cities' chief characteristics.

Examines ancient cities in the Americas, revealing how settlements evolved and how urban centers grew and functioned.

William Ferguson's classic photographic portrayal of the major pre-Columbian ruins of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras is now available from UNM Press in a completely revised edition. Magnificent aerial and ground photographs give both armchair and actual visitors unparalleled views of fifty-one ancient cities. The restored areas of each site and their interesting and exotic features are shown within each group of ruins. The authors have thoroughly revised the text for this new edition, and they have added over 30 new photographs and illustrations as well as a completely new chapter by Richard E. W. Adams on regional states and empires in ancient Mesoamerica. Over a span of three thousand years between 1500 B.C. and A.D. 1500 great civilizations, including the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Toltec, Zapotec, and Aztec, flourished, waned, and died in Mesoamerica. These indigenous cultures of Mexico and Central America are brought to life in Mesoamerica's Ancient Cities through stunning color photographs. The authors include the most recent research and most widely accepted theoretical perspectives on Mesoamerican civilizations. Ideal for the general reader as well as scholars of Mesoamerica, this volume makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the Americas.

A beautifully illustrated look at the forces that help cities grow—and eventually cause their destruction—told through the stories of the great civilizations of ancient America. You may think you know all of the American cities. But did you know that long before New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Boston ever appeared on the map—thousands of years before Europeans first colonized North America—other cities were here? They grew up, fourished, and eventually disappeared in the same places that modern cities like St. Louis and Mexico City would later appear. In the pages of this book, you'll find the astonishing story of how they grew from small settlements to booming city centers—and then crumbled into ruins.

This new volume in the GCI's Readings in Conservation series brings together a selection of seminal writings on the conservation of historic cities. This book, the eighth in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Readings in Conservation series, fills a significant gap in the published literature on urban conservation. This topic is distinct from both heritage conservation and urban planning despite the recent growth of urbanism worldwide, no single volume has presented a comprehensive selection of these important writings until now. This anthology, profusely illustrated throughout, is organized into eight parts, covering such subjects as geographic diversity, reactions to the transformation of traditional cities, reading the historic city, the search for contextual continuities, the search for values, and the challenges of sustainability. With more than sixty-five texts, ranging from early polemics by Victor Hugo and John Ruskin to a generous selection of recent scholarship, this book thoroughly addresses regions around the globe. Each reading is introduced by short prefatory remarks explaining the rationale for its selection and the principal matters covered. The book will serve as an easy reference for administrators, professionals, teachers, and students faced with the day-to-day challenges confronting the historic city under siege by rampant development.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Science Friday A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history—and figure out why people abandoned them. In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.

Take a trip through time to see how ancient cities and civilizations thrived and fell long ago as you Travel to... Ancient Cities and Civilizations! Part of the Travel to... Children’s Book Series, this 48-page nonfiction book takes you back in time to ancient Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Mexico, and other places in ancient history. Learn about their societies, their architecture, the rise and fall of power, and more. World History Book Features: Before- and after-reading activities Extension activity Glossary About Rourke Educational Media: We proudly publish respectful and relevant nonfiction and fiction titles that represent our diverse readers, and are designed to support reading on a level that has no limits!

This volume investigates how the structure and use of space developed and changed in cities, and examines the role of different societal groups in shaping urbanism. Culturally and chronologically diverse case studies provide a basis to examine recent theoretical and methodological shifts in the archaeology of ancient cities. The book's primary goal is to examine how ancient cities were made by the people who lived in them. The authors argue that there is a mutually constituting relationship between urban form and the actions and interactions of a plurality of individuals, groups, and institutions, each with their own motivations and identities. Space is therefore socially produced as these agents operate in multiple spheres.