Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age

by Annalee Newitz

Overview

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Science Friday

A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history—and figure out why people abandoned them.

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.

Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia.

Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393882452
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/11/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	144,341
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Annalee Newitz is a journalist and author of science fiction and nonfiction, including the national best-seller Four Lost Cities. They write for the New York Times and New Scientist and co-host the Hugo Award–winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. They live in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Introduction: How Do You Lose a City? 1

Part 1 Çatalhöyük the doorway

Chapter 1 The Shock of Settled Life 19

Chapter 2 The Truth about Goddesses 41

Chapter 3 History within History 59

Part 2 Pompeii the street

Chapter 4 Riot on the Via dell'Abbondanza 81

Chapter 5 What We Do in Public 103

Chapter 6 After the Mountain Burned 127

Part 3 Angkor the reservoir

Chapter 7 An Alternate History of Agriculture 145

Chapter 8 Empire of Water 161

Chapter 9 The Remains of Imperialism 183

Part 4 Cahokia the plaza

Chapter 10 America's Ancient Pyramids 207

Chapter 11 A Great Revival 227

Chapter 12 Deliberate Abandonment 241

Epilogue: Warning-Social Experiment in Progress 255

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 265

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

"[An] astounding reflection on the rise and fall of civilisations…energising."

Nilanjana Roy

"[E]xcellent…fair, judicious, open-minded…the strength of the book arises from distrust of elites and preference for common people."

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

"The book functions as a travel guide to places that no longer exist…[it] filled me with wonder."

Russell Shorto

"In their fascinating book Four Lost Cities, Annalee Newitz journeys to a quartet of ancient ghost cities, asking not only why they once thrived but why they ultimately vanished. The result is a deeply insightful look at human culture everywhere: inventive, social, resilient, and hauntingly fragile."

Deborah Blum

"Cheerful, curious, amused, and amusing, Annalee Newitz is a fabulous tour guide through the latest archaeological perspectives on four of humankind’s most remarkable urban experiments. Along the way, Newitz dispels myths, evokes fascinating stories—and makes us think hard about our own urban future."

Charles Mann

"Newitz clearly draws parallels and lessons for the here and now from these once-vast settlements…Highly recommended."

Booklist (starred review)

"Drawing on four examples from the ancient world, Annalee Newitz gives us clear-eyed insight into how cities never are truly lost; they just change with their times. Newitz takes readers on a journey that reveals as much about the future of cities as it does about our urban past. Beautifully written, Four Lost Cities tells a fascinating tale of disaster and resilience that is welcome in our uncertain era."

Andrew Lawler

"Annalee Newitz is a brilliant writer with the heart of an archaeologist and the soul of a visionary. Four Lost Cities should open our eyes to all that may happen to our cities in the future. Vibrant and adventurous, this is a necessary book for turbulent times."

Sarah Parcak

"Newitz always sees to the heart of complex systems and breaks them down with poetic ferocity."

N. K. Jemisin

12/01/2020

Newitz is an opinion writer for the New York Times and author of novels including Autonomous and The Future of Another Timeline. In this latest work, she takes a time-transgressive look at how centers of urban development rise, thrive, and die. Newitz focuses on four prehistoric urban centers in order to give readers an understanding that, despite differences in time, place, and complexity, urban societies share many similarities. Important urban centers considered are Catalhoyuk, Pompeii, Angkor Wat, and Cahokia. The author poignantly expresses the clear similarities of the "life and death" of these centers of urban development, but also ties them to our understanding of present-day centers of urban population and the complexities of their organization and decay. This book represents a real-time perception of the modern urban age and the lessons learned from prehistory. The author's observations are well-researched, current, and directly applicable to our modern lives. Four Lost Cities represents a contemporary companion to Elaine Morgan's Falling Apart, the Rise and Fall of Urban Civilization (1972). Those interested in prehistoric urban complexity, ancient civilizations, and world history will benefit from this new book. VERDICT An excellent contribution to literature on ancient civilization and complexity.—John Dockall, Austin, TX

Library Journal

Narrator Chloe Cannon has a great voice—but not one you’d necessarily choose to describe the dissecting of ancient archaeological sites. Narrator and narrative aren’t at odds here, exactly. But neither are they in any way a match. Journalist Annalee Newitz’s on-the-spot depictions of Catalhoyuk, Pompeii, Angkor, and Cahokia are close up and personal, and her choices have a certain celebrity value. But Newitz’s narrative also conveys a greater degree of sensitivity and understanding than one hears in the narrator’s voice. Cannon best conveys Newitz’s awe and appreciation as they imagine what life must have been like in these once great cities. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2021 - AudioFile

2020-10-23
An exploration of four far-flung ancient cities, each undone by climate and politics.

An alternate title for this book might be A People’s History of Urbanism. Newitz is interested in how cities form, grow, and dissipate, and the author trains their focus on how everyday lives were affected by those processes. To do that, they select a quartet of once-mighty metropolises. Catalhoyuk, located in present-day Turkey 9,000 years ago, marked humanity’s uneasy shift from farming communities to a dense city until sustained cold and drought unraveled the place. Pompeii was famously obliterated by a volcanic eruption in 79 C.E., but before it then exemplified a diverse society whose folkways survived beyond the city’s ruins. Thailand’s Angkor is known now for its majestic temples, but in the 13th century, those were just part of an agriculturally complex and sprawling region with a sophisticated infrastructure that was hard to maintain amid climate fluctuation and shaky leadership. Cahokia, located near present-day Saint Louis, was at its height (circa 1050 C.E.) an agricultural epicenter big on collective gatherings, fun and not (human sacrifices were common), until flood and drought likely took a toll. Newitz colors the narrative with accounts of personal visits to each site and interviews with the archaeologists there, many of whom debunk past scholars who looked at sites through a Western lens. (Not every naked female figurine represents a fertility goddess; not every successful society is rigidly hierarchical.) The author also attacks contemporary scholars like Jared Diamond, who argued that ancient civilizations collapse outright; more correctly, Newitz argues, multiple forces challenge and disperse communities. In an era of climate change, it’s a hearteningly un-dystopian message but still a challenge to leaders to focus on “resilient infrastructure…public plazas, domestic spaces for everyone, social mobility, and leaders who treat the city’s workers with dignity.”

A revealing look at the ancient past that speaks thoughtfully to the global-warming present.

Kirkus Reviews