In Four Lost Cities acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an
entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating
across the centuries and around the world Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient
cities each the centre of a sophisticated civilisation: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in
Central Turkey the Roman town of Pompeii on Italy's southern coast the medieval megacity of
Angkor in Cambodia and the indigenous American metropolis Cahokia which stood beside the
Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Newitz travels to all four sites and
investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology revealing the mix of environmental
changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early
development of urban planning Newitz also introduces us to the often-anonymous workers-slaves
women immigrants and manual labourers-who built these cities and created monuments that lasted
millennia. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past but foreseeing a future in
which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities. It may also reveal something of
our own fate.
