Title: Four Lost Cities – A secret history of the Urban Age

Author: Annalee Newitz

Pages: 262

Hi all,

This book has been waiting very patiently in my Wish list and could finally be read. The history books I have read before mainly tried to tell the story of how the people lived and how the history progressed.

This book takes a different angle in that it tries to understand how the cities became “lost” in the first place. What happened in the cities that they “fell” and is there something we can learn from them?

It is not too technical, so it can be understood well enough by the everyday individual that just wants to read something interesting about history.

This book is covers the following chapters:

• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Part One – Catalhoyuk (in modern day Turkey)
  • Chapter 1 – The shock of settled life (pg. 19)
  • Chapter 2 – The truth about goddesses (pg. 41)
  • Chapter 3 – History within history (pg. 59)
• Part Two – Pompeii (in modern day Italy)
  • Chapter 4 – Riot on the Via dell’Abbondanza (pg. 81)
  • Chapter 5 – What we do in public (pg. 103)
  • Chapter 6 – After the mountain burned (pg. 127)
• Part Three – Angkor (in modern day Cambodia)
  • Chapter 7 – An alternate history of agriculture (pg. 145)
  • Chapter 8 – Empire of water (pg. 161)
  • Chapter 9 – The remains of imperialism (pg. 183)
• Part Four – Cahokia (in modern day USA)
  • Chapter 10 – America’s ancient pyramids (pg. 207)
  • Chapter 11 – A great revival (pg. 227)
  • Chapter 12 – Deliberate abandonment (pg. 241)
• Epilogue (pg. 255)

The author continuously comes to the reasoning that the cities didn’t “fall” or become “lost”. In the case of three of the above cities, the cities suffered from both environmental change and political unrest, which lead the people to decide to take their things and seek better fortunes elsewhere. The people didn’t forget that the cities ever existed, they simply had become unattractive for them to live at. One city (Pompeii) suffered greatly from an environmental event that its city life ended abruptly.

Therefore, the author comes to the conclusion that cities are never static, but always undergoing transformation. Transformation because of environmental impacts or political and social changes. These changes either cause the population size to increase or decrease. Both the increase and decrease are mostly a gradual process. However, they can also experience sudden surges when certain events happen.

Summary:

The book was definitely an interesting perspective to gain an understanding why cities can rise and fall. Especially the latter, since the modern perception of “fall” can be understood to be something definite and not gradual decline. The book is not difficult to understand and she has added findings from different archeologists and not anchored to the thesis of one individual. She has also looked at old archeological views vs. modern views, to see whether our previous understanding was biased.

The book receives a rating of 3,8/5.

Best wishes to you!!!

Link (German): Not available

Link (English): https://amzn.to/3Yf2pus