Extraordinary cities : millennia of moral syndromes, world-systems and city/state relations

Peter J. Taylor has produced a sweeping, empirically grounded, defense of cities as fundamental building blocks of long-term, large scale social structures; a way of freeing social science from state-centric bias; and indeed, mankinds hope. However, the single greatest strength of this complex, seductive, argument is the insistence on treating cities relationally, as process. Here the key to understanding the significance of cities is by studying them in terms of the dynamic networks they form and in their relations to states. (Richard E. Lee, Binghamton University, US). -- The founding father of the famous Globalization and World Cities Research Network and think-tank on worldwide links between cities presents this fascinating overview on cities in geohistory. By moving cities to the centre stage, Peter Taylor proposes that concern for states tell only part of the macro-social story of humanity. Cities have been, and are, the engines of innovation. This impressive new book provides new insights into why cities succeed or fail. The book is in the class with broadminded presentations like Jared Diamonds book Guns, Germs and Steel. (Christian Matthiessen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and President, International Geographical Unions Commission on Urban Geography). -- This is a "big book" by Peter Taylor. It tells of the extraordinary world-making powers of cities across the ages, it explains why a state-centric social science has constrained recognition of these powers over the last two centuries, and it outlines a new "indisciplinarity" to help us make sense of a human condition increasingly forged out of the urban. Anyone troubled by the social sciences as we know them, ought to read this book. (Ash Amin, Cambridge University, UK and author, Land of Strangers).