Description

This  article is an homage to, and review of: The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship by Murray Bookchin.

In Bookchin’s writing we can see that in his account is a pioneer effort that challenges misleading images of modern industrial achievement and triumphant western democracy. According to Bookchin cities and agriculture do not necessarily require one another. Farming usually becomes a major tool for maintaining settlements in surroundings not so idyllic as Catal Hüyük’s. The exceptions do not indicate that the neolithic urban trend wasn’t powerful, but they show that there must be other reasons why people pile upon one another besides the need to manage agricultural land.

Photo: Diego Gonzalez