A collection of essays by the respected social commentator on some problems faced by cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Paris, on the architecture of Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Wright, and on city and highway planning.

Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) was a world-renowned historian, sociologist, philosopher, and critic who refused to be defined by any of those titles. He is perhaps best known for his studies of the city in history and for his writing on, and criticism of, technological society, and was the architectural critic and also art critic at the New Yorker for forty years. His thinking on ecological planning and design had considerable influence on the international green movement. Mumford was born in New York City and educated at Stuyvesant High School and the City College of New York, but never received a degree. He later taught at the University of Pennsylvania (which now holds his archives), Stanford, and MIT. Mumford and his wife Sophia were prominent in efforts to bring the United States into the fight against Hitler and after the war campaigned against nuclear weapons. Later, he was an early and vocal critic of the Vietnam War. His honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, National Award for Literature, National Medal for the Arts, Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca, Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a KBE from Queen Elizabeth II. His 1961 book, The City in History, received the National Book Award.