Four Lost Cities

Newitz, Annalee. Four Lost Cities: A Secret History to the Urban Age. New York: Norton 2021. Print

First Sentences:

I stood on the crumbling remains of a perfectly square island at the center of an artificial lake created by hydraulic engineers 1,000 years ago.


Description:

Ancient people, civilizations, and cities have always fascinated me since traveling in my youth to climb around the Mexican pyramids of Chichen Itsa and the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, AZ. Nearby today, there are ancient mounds near my home in Ohio. These relics always whisper of mystery, intrigue, and wonder as viewers try to imagine the people, culture, and engineers who constructed and lived with these monuments to human achievement. 

 

Science journalist Annalee Newitz is a like-minded person. In her book Four Lost Cities: A Secret History to the Urban Age, she thoroughly researches four great ancient cities: the 7,000-year-old Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk, Turkey; the 2,500-year-old Pompeii; the Cambodian city of Angkor (from 1,000 years ago); and Cahokiawith, with its pyramids and mounds in southern Illinois, also inhabited about 1,000 years ago.

 

For each city, she interviewers researchers, anthropologists, archeologists, and other scientists to piece together what is known of these ancient urban areas. Always, she visits the sites, picking up details about the people who lived there as she paints a realistic picture of what their lives were like. 

For Pompeii, a scientist who studies the ancient roads, told her he noticed the ruts were the same distance apart, showing all carts were uniform in wheel base. He also noted that curbs were worn down on the right side, revealing that vehicles often cut corners while turning right, gradually eroding the curbs. No such breakage occured on the left curbs. The implication was that traffic direction flowed from the right side, like traffic in the United States, rather than from the left side as in England. Who could not enjoy reading about such details?

In Catalhoyuk, thought to be one of the first cities in the world, Newitz researches the causes behind why humans who settled there switched from being wandering nomads to creators of a cluster of permanent shelters. The next question she explores is why these early city-dwellers  chose to remain in the same location for thousands of years, building and then re-building on top of the foundations of their old cell-like homes (after filling in the old unit with all their trash to serve as a more solid foundation). 

After carefully assembling this scientific data of the cities and people, Newitz uses other interviews with experts to try to understand why these thriving urban developments were later abandoned. Was the emptying of the city a sudden geological occurrence as with Pompeii, or did the departure of inhabitants occur over many, many years as the artifacts from Angkor and Catalhoyuk suggest? Environment? Politics? Food shortage? Fire? Other factors?

 

Four Lost Cities is a thoroughly engrossing book, clearly-written and understandable to non-scientists like me. Newitz has a passion for history, people, behavior, and cities that shows on every page. If you are intrigued by history, people, culture, and unraveling mysteries, this is the book for you. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Preston, Douglas. The Lost City of the Monkey God.   

In 2012, author Douglas used sophisticated lidar radar from a plane to locate a lost city densely covered and forgotten by the forest of Honduras. Rumors of the fabulous riches of the "White City" have been whispered since the  days of the Spanish conquistadors. This book details the true adventures, dangers, ferocious animals, disease and other challenges experienced in the exploration Douglas undertakes to rediscover this ancient, sprawling city.   (previously reviewed here)

 

Tip of the Iceberg

Adams, Mark. Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Alaska, the Last Great American Frontier New York: Crown 2018. Print.

First Sentences:

Our two-person kayak skimmed the surface of Glacier Bay's glassy water, the bow pointed like a compass needle at the rocky lump of Russell Island.

The sun was out, always a pleasant surprise in Southeast Alaska ...

Description:

One thing I love about travel writer Mark Adams is his ability to make me want to binge read an entire book in one sitting. Combining history and current travel adventures with humor and curiosity, he always lures me deeper into his experiences and mind no matter what lands he is describing. His latest travel book, Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Alaska, the Last Great American Frontier, is no exception, and certainly holds it own with my previous favorite of his, Turn Right at Machu Picchu.

In 1899, Edward Harriman, the multimillionaire railroad magnate, designed and embarked on a unique voyage up the coast of Alaska. Known as the Inside Passage, the route was little explored much less studied. Harriman, supposedly on vacation from his wheeling and dealing with railroad expansion, converted a steamship into a luxury liner and embarked on the two-month voyage. He also invited noted scientists in biology, geology, and ecology, along with famous photographers and writers including John Muir, to accompany him and study and describe to the public this wild area.

Kyle [Adams' guide] pointed out a mountain that had never been climbed, one of thousands of such peaks in Alaska.

In Tip of the Iceberg, Adams decides to retrace Harriman's trip, using rickety ferry boats and kayaks to duplicate the route of these scientists. Adams, not a camper or explorer, brings a novice's eye to the daily experiences, both awe-inspiring and tawdry. In addition to his own adventures, Adams weaves in historical anecdotes from the original 1899 expedition, with stories about each city, the Alaskan locals and native Tlingit people, but best of all the mountainous glaciers. 

Glaciers play a large role in his narrative. Much of Alaska was formed by glacial movements carving valleys and wearing away gigantic mountains. The essays from the first expedition from John Muir, a glacier expert, are astonishing. Climbing monstrous glaciers in freezing rain and snow storms, Muir noted the size of Alaskan glaciers, named several (including Muir Glacier, the biggest one, of course), and measured their retreat (three miles) when he returned 20 years later. Adams writes with awe about his own first sighting of these mountains of ice, watching the calving of ice breaking off glaciers (and the huge waves that form as a result), and calculating, like Muir, their retreat from their position 110 years ago (over 30 miles).

Along the way, Adams talks to many of his fellow passengers and local residents. From Mounties to museum directors, fishermen to kayakers, they all have colorful stories to share that Adams passes on to us, his lucky readers. We learn: 

• For some time now, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States, including the growing season expanding by 45%, and plants and animals migrating to the north in record numbers;
• Facing down a bear is like facing down a drunk: You just have to bluff that you're tougher than he is.
• Salmon fisherman can make "ten grand in a few busy weeks;" 
• Every person of the Alaskan population pays no state income tax, but receives a yearly payout from oil companies of between $1000 - $2,000;
• Tlinglets, the "uncivilized native tribes" according to the 1867 laws, were subject to all laws and regulations but were denied "all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States....They were barely tolerated guests in the home they'd occupied for thousands of years;"
• At northernmost villages, the entire local population boards any boat that enters their port to eat the hamburgers offered by the galley. It's a rare treat for places with no restaurants and few groceries.

Like Alaska, this book is too rich to fully describe here in a few paragraphs. But I highly recommend it for anyone traveling to Alaska to get to know what they are in for (the good as well as the quirky), and for those like me who enjoy armchair adventures and travel experiences. A binge-worthy addition to any travel reader's collection.

You can be in awe of the beauty, but you have to remember that things can go from "Ooh, aah!" to "Oh, shit!" in an instant.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Adams, Mark. Turn Right at Machu Picchu  

Author Adams retraces the 1911 trip in the Peruvian Andes of Hiram Bingham that led to the discovery of Machu Picchu. Adams is a wonderfully entertaining writer, combining historical antedotes with funny, fascinating experiences from his day-by-day hike with an eccentric, enthusiastic guide. (previously reviewed here)