The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, Its Prospects by Lewis Mumford

 Character Town Commentary. 

Lewis Mumford became famous because of this book; he won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 1962. The City in History parallels the history of mankind. Mumford starts the story when a reliable supply of food arose perhaps 15,000 years ago [YA]; at that point signs of permanent habitation began to appear [p.10] even though agriculture as we know it was still thousands of years away. The ice cap was still near its maximum and the ice did not begin to melt until around 11,500 years ago. The first signs of collective living appear some 10,000 years ago; Jericho and Damascus can be traced back to this time. New discoveries continue to find even earlier evidence of collective living. But, the point is, for the last ten millennia, mankind has been building cities.