The Intellectual Versus The City Book Reviews

The Intellectual Versus The City by Morton Gabriel White & Lucia White Book Summary

AS CITIZENS OF A HISTORICALLY FRONTIER LAND, AMERICANS HAVE AN INHERENT DISTRUST OF THE CONFINEMENTS AND COMPLEXITIES OF THE CITY.

But this ingrained romanticism about the natural life—the authors insist—does not fully explain American anti-urbanism. They point out that not only men like Emerson and Melville, but cosmopolitan figures such as Henry James, John Dewey and Theodore Dreiser have considered the American city a sinister place. The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to demolish the metropolis and replace it with a revolutionary form of living. Even the world-famous industrialist Henry Ford has said, “We shall solve the City Problem by leaving the City.”

Tracing back across a century and a half, exploring the fields of art, philosophy, and sociology, Morton and Lucia White reveal what important Americans have said about their cities, and why. The authors suggest that modern city planners and social scientists have something to learn from these great dissenters, from their troubling wisdom and their urgent prophecies.

From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright our nation’s most distinguished artists, leaders, and intellectuals have proclaimed open hostility toward the city. Unlike the Englishman’s London or the Frenchman’s Paris, they have found nothing to love in the sprawling American metropolis. This significant and thoughtful study analyzes for the first time the major intellectual reactions to urbanism that have appeared through a century and a half of American history and offers some provocative conclusions as to why our cities have been the traditional object of prejudice, fear, and distrust.

“A revealing analysis of American attitudes toward urbanization and urban life.”—New York Times

“Excellent”—Harper’s

“This lucid and imaginative book opens up new vistas in our understanding of our past and of our present.”—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

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The Intellectual Versus The City (Morton Gabriel White & Lucia White) Book Reviews 2024

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