Cities were places of “pessimism not hope”

Megalopolises cities like Chicago where 6 per cent of its inhabitants died of Cholera pandemic in 1854, the outbreak killed 8. 600 in 1892 and the great plague claimed the lives of over 100, 000 for London  (a quarter of the population) between1665-1666. Although cities have only ever been inhabited by a tiny minority of humanity, the heat they generate has sparked most of our political, social, commercial, economical, scientific and artistic revolutions.

The glooming hubs of modern cities emptied by Covid-19 lockdown and fear of infection spreading.

For centuries there has been a fatal attraction for country dwellers rushing to the cities, drawing people and businesses to urban clusters which has become a high risk activity when pandemic emerged. With the equivalent of 8 cities the size of New York were being formed yearly around the world, before Covid-19 took over.

After a journey through 7, 000 years and 26 world cities, historian Ben Wilson’s new book “History of Humankind’s Greatest invention”,  takes us through an urban lens and explain cities were  places of “pessimism not hope” and how metropolis is vulnerable to pandemic and struggles to cope. He demonstrates how urban living has been spur and incubator to humankind’s greatest innovations.

In the two hundred millennia of our existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city which has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning with Urk, the world’s first city dating to 5000 BC and memorably portrayed in the Epic of Gilgamesh, he shows us that Human endeavour-producing new professions, forms of art, worship and trade – that they kick-started nothing less than civilization.  Wilson takes us on a thrilling global tour of Alexandria, London, Paris, New York, Athens, LA , Shanghai and Lagos. With over half the world’s population now living in cities, and with the cosmopolitanism of the a major world metropolises under attack from revived nationalism and hostility to globalisation, it has never been more important to understand cities and the role they played in making us who we are.

Urban growth has been  rapid in developing economies that many dreamers who arrive at the cities prefer to live in sluns and Shanty towns  rather than stay in the village- 55 per cent of Mumbai’s population live in informal settlements.

The Innovations driven by each civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance of coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris. Wilson  studies of impact of vertically in New York City, the sprawl of L.A. and the eco-reimaging of twenty-first century Shanghai, Lively, erudite, page turning and irresistible. Metropolis is a grand tour of human achievement.

Coronavirus emerged from Wuhan, a city of 11 million population before the pandemic.

Metropolis: A History of  Humankind’s Greatest Invention by Ben Wilson, Jonathan Cape £25, 448 pages.