'Offer[s] a unique point of view that includes many valuable insights about cities …' David R. Conn, Library Journal
Introduction: Our Urban Planet in Space and Time; Prologue: Before and Beyond: Big Things in Tiny Places; Part I. Cities of the Rivers: 1. Making Politics from Sunshine, Earth, and Water; 2. Igniting Empire; 3. Wealth for a Few, Poverty for Many I; 4. Wealth for a Few, Poverty for Many II; 5. How Knowledge Became Power; 6. The Realm of Consequence; Part II. Cities of the World Ocean: 7. Bastions, Battleships, and Gunpowder Cities; 8. Wealth from the Winds and Waves; 9. Consuming the Earth in Cities of Light … and Delight; Part III. Cities of Hydrocarbon: 10. Chimneys to Smokestacks; 11. Planet of the People I: The Atlantic Cauldron; 12. Planet of the People II: Feminists, Abolitionists, and los Liberales; 13. Weapons of World Conquest; 14. Capitalist Explosions; 15. The Pharoahs of Flow; 16. Planet of the People III: An Urban Majority Takes its Space; 17. Lamps Out; 18. The Labyrinths of Terror; 19. Gathering Velocities I: Tailpipe Tracts and Tower Blocks; 20. Gathering Velocities II: Liberation and Development; 21. Greatest Accelerations I: New Empires, New Multitudes; 22. Greatest Accelerations II: Shacks and Citadels; 23. Greatest Accelerations III: Pleasure Palaces and Sweatshops; 24. Greatest Accelerations IV: Maximal Hydrocarbon, Maximal Waste; 25. 2020 Hindsight … and Foresight?; Acknowledgements; Notes; Index.
