PositiveScienceAlthough drawing a clean conceptual binary between the rural and the urban is quite uncommon in contemporary urban studies, doing so, to follow Smith’s arguments, illuminates patterns and continuities that are often overlooked. The book engages a simple question: \'Why cities?’ Are they a natural step in human habitation’s evolution or a response to something else?\' Drawing from decades of field and analytical work in archaeology and weaving with it a rich exploration of history, geography, and current research, Smith’s argument places cities at the center of human social experience ... Cities is an unusual and compelling journey from city life in ancient urban centers to the present and beyond.
