Cities in Civilization

Sir Peter Hall. Cities in Civilization. New York: Pantheon, 1998.

Sir Peter Hall, a professor of city and regional planning, has written an 1100 page magnum opus that examines twenty-one cities at their greatest moments over the past 2500 years.

The book is divided into five parts. Part One, "The City as Cultural Crucible," describes cities such as Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan London, and nineteenthcentury Vienna and underscores their role as seedbeds of...