Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities
By:
Alex Marshall
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Lowest New Price: $4.95
List Price: $19.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Description:
The pulse of great cities may be most palpable above ground, but it is below the busy streets where we can observe their rich archaeological history and the infrastructure that keeps them running. In Beneath the Metropolis journalist Alex Marshall investigates how geological features, archaeological remnants of past civilizations, and layered networks transporting water, electricity, and people, have shaped these cities through centuries of political turbulence and advancements in engineering — and how they are determining the course of the cities' future. From the first-century catacombs of Rome, the New York subway system, and the swamps and ancient quays beneath London, to San Francisco's fault lines, the depleted aquifer below Mexico City, and Mao Tse-tung's extensive network of secret tunnels under Beijing, these subterranean environments offer a unique cross-section of a city's history and future. Stunningly illustrated with colorful photographs, drawings, and maps, Beneath the Metropolis reveals the hidden worlds beneath our feet, and charts the cities' development through centuries of forgotten history, political change, and technological innovation.
Publisher: Running Press
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Amazingly Revealing! - I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about the history and underworkings of the great cities of the world. It gave me a new appreciation for what goes in to the planning, creation and development of a major city.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
What's there beneath our feet.. - I almost started by stating this book isn't for the average reader. But, I'm an average reader, and frankly I found the information within it fascinating. Coincidentally I lived in N.Y.C., and have a little more experience with its underground infrastructure than just having been a straphanger (subway rider). Mr. Marshall has a no nonsense writing style, and his research has resulted in much interesting information regarding what's buried beneath our feet. The history of how, and why things got, and get buried in the first place makes the book all the more enlightening. Especially the consideration that things get buried as a result of debris that accumulates over time, and how history is lost, and then sometimes rediscovered in the process of modernization.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Explaining the Underworld - A beautiful book, monumental piece of research, with clear and engaging prose and a great mix of maps, illustrations, capsule histories, lively facts, and timelines. If you ever stood over a manhole or at the dark edge of a subway tunnel and wondered, "What's down there?" then this book will tell you. Beneath the Metropolis describes what's underneath 12 world cities -- New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, London, Rome, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow and Sydney. With pith and concision, Marshall details the infrastructure, the archeology and the geology. In Paris, we learn about the fossilized bones and the beautiful sewers and subways. In Rome, we tour the ancient ruins and rickety subway (did you know there was one?). In Beijing, we learn about the vast network of cold war tunnels that few visit. Marshall uses each city's underground to trace its history, politics and economics. It's a pleasure to learn how successful cities, like London or Paris, can take different approaches to infrastructure. As a fellow author and former Columbia classmate, I admire and envy Marshall's success in wrestling such a huge topic into a pleasurable masterpiece. Beneath the Metropolis is destined for many a reader's nightstand as well as planning and political offices and classrooms.
--Christopher D. Ringwald, author of A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath (Oxford, 2007)
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