How did ancient cities weather crises?

How did ancient cities weather crises?

How ancient cities got through hard times

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken our faith in urban life, notes author Andrew Robinson in his review of a book by historian Greg Woolf. Starting from Uruk, in Mesopotamia — arguably the first city ever — Woolf offers a deeply researched and ambitious natural history of the origins and growth of urbanism. Though written before the coronavirus pandemic, the book offers insight into how disease nudged the courses of great cities as they rose — and inevitably, fell.

Nature | 6 min read