History of Cities in Maps

The collection of over sixty maps covers an impressive range of cities, from ancient metropolises like Babylon and Athens to modern urban centers like New York and Beijing. Each map is a window into a particular moment in a city's evolution, highlighting key events like the Great Fire of London or the fall of Berlin's wall. The vibrant artwork and historic details pull you in, and some of the maps are so complex and detailed that you’ll want to spend time examining every corner. The accompanying text is just as captivating as the visuals. Each chapter is dedicated to a different city, blending historical facts with fascinating insights into the military, industrial, and cultural forces that shaped these places. The book's underlying theme—“The history of mankind is the history of the city”—is a powerful concept that echoes throughout, showing how urban spaces have been the driving force behind civilization. What I loved most was how this book doesn’t just give a history lesson—it invites you to explore. Whether it's cities that have been lost to time or those that have been reborn, the narrative offers rich perspectives on how cities influence and reflect the human experience. This is a book to be savored. It’s perfect for history buffs, map enthusiasts, or anyone curious about the evolution of urban spaces. Whether you dip in to appreciate the beautiful illustrations or dive into the detailed historical accounts, History of Cities in Maps is a treasure trove of knowledge and art. Highly recommended!

Given as gift which recipient loved

Beautiful graphics, gift well received.

A great book showing a selection of cities from around the world from ancient times to the present in old maps. The maps are really beautiful to see with a brief outline of the history of the city. Overall I would give this book 5 stars out of 5.

Perfect gift for my brother who loves his history and his maps

This is a fascinating topic and the book does a reasonable job of exploring the subject however there are some issues with it. Firstly one might expect such a book to be a reference style - i.e. look up a city, see its map and read about it - NO - there is no index of cities, you have to scan through the topics at the front to find cities of interest - this is a shame - an alphabetical index would have been so useful. The book is however written with the intent to guide a reader through a history of the development of cities and picks on examples through history to illustrate this. One issue I have here is the layout of the text, which is in twin columns - there's no reason for this - the illustrations are nearly all full page or double page illustrations. It would have been far easier to read if laid out normally rather than in encyclopedic style. The second issue I have is that the quality of the maps varies greatly. Some are useful because they demonstrate something the text describes. Some are interesting because they have a lot of detail and they're "old maps". Others are just fuzzy images - with unreadable text or details so you have no idea what you're looking at. In some ways this is unavoidable - maps are generally quite large and reducing their size is going to have consequences, but more intelligent use of the images would have been preferred. Highlight sections of interest that the text discusses. Add some arrows and a readable key around the edge. As it stands one feels that the publishers feel that most people will buy this simply to look at the pictures. So overall this is a 4* - if you like looking at old maps and have a strong interest in history there's enough here to interest. But this could have been SO much better - a missed opportunity.