Description

From Uruk to New York, how urban life shaped civilisation.

Across 7,000 years of history, historian Ben Wilson charts how cities have driven innovation, culture and progress. From Mesopotamia’s first streets to the skyscrapers of today, Metropolis celebrates the creativity born from urban collision – while exploring the challenges of crowding, inequality and climate.

Rich in character and colour, it’s both a sweeping history and a love letter to the bustle and brilliance of urban life. For readers of Sapiens and The Silk Roads, this is history at its most visionary and vivid.

‘Brilliant… enchanting.’ Evening Standard
‘A towering achievement… exhilarating.’ Wall Street Journal

Publisher Review

Brilliant... Enchanting... This is a history of the world told through its most buccaneering units... And it is full of quirky facts about London. -- Arjun Neil Alim * Evening Standard * Compendious and fascinating... Metropolis is crammed with local colour; and what gives the historical schema its real flavour is the deviations it allows... It makes you understand why we opted for cities in the first place, and why, despite the doom and gloom, I doubt we will be quitting them any time soon. -- Tim Smith-Laing * Daily Telegraph * Wilson [is] an erudite, creative guide to the history of civilization through its great urban areas... He broadens the book's focus beyond the usual Western suspects... An excellent account. -- Eben Shapiro * Time Magazine * Wilson sets out to match Mumford's sweep in Metropolis, and he brilliantly synthesises the forces that make cities hum. -- John Gapper * Financial Times * Capacious, entertaining and rich in wondrous detail, this is a work of history that pulls of the startling feat of measuring up to the immensity of its subject matter. -- Tom Holland * Literary Review *