Lewis Mumford, A Thinker for the Ages Tells a Tale Of Cities Since the Middle Ages

In the beginning, the religiously centered city

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My Dad often spoke about his admiration for Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 — January 26, 1990) but I had never read Mumford and so when I saw a paper in my email on Lewis Mumford, I downloaded it, which only made me want to read Mumford in his own words.

Although Mumford was an influential inspiration in Europe after World War II, it was not easy to find works by Mumford online.

Finally, I found The Culture of the Cities by Lewis Mumford available in full on Monoskop.com, billed as a wiki for arts, media, and humanities.

Mumford describes The Culture of the Cities as a companion volume to Technics and Civilization saying in the introduction that “ each seeks to explore what the modern world may hold for mankind once men of goodwill have learned to subdue the barbarous mechanisms and the mechanized barbarisms that now threaten the very existence of civilization. “

Writing in a poetic voice and analytical mind, Mumford te…