Urbane

Book Review: The Great Cities in History, edited by John Julius Norwich
As an anthology, there is inevitably a variation of styles across a wide authorship, but it does feel lacking in material to weave the essays together successfully, comparing and contrasting, finding common patterns. The essays are arranged chronologically, so the early sections are more speculative and less photogenic, on the edge of prehistory, Carthage being the first selection really to feature in written history. Perhaps because of their unfamiliarity, essays on cities beyond Europe and the Middle East are more interesting: Teotihuacan and Tikal, Angkor and Timbuktu. More familiar places appear again in later essays; I've visited most of the European cities featuring here, but Palermo, Lübeck and Córdoba stand out as future destinations, if we can ever return to an age of leisure travel. Into the modern era, the selection broadens out to be more global. Overall, this felt episodically interesting but rather less than the sum of its parts.