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In Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, 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.
Through cutting-edge archaeological research, Newitz reveals the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements and introduces us to the often anonymous workers—enslaved people, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia. This journey into the forgotten past may also reveal something of our own fate.
Annalee Newitz is an award-winning science writer, novelist, and podcaster. They have written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and other publications. Former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, Newitz holds a PhD in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley.
"The book functions as a travel guide to places that no longer exist. . . . [It] filled me with wonder." —Russell Shorto, New York Times Book Review
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