In The City and the World Gregor Hens explores the city in the twenty-first century - a space
we shape and are shaped by in turn - and our place within it. Travelling from Berlin to Las
Vegas Shenzhen to Santiago de Chile he moves through these pulsing ever-expanding cityscapes
reading walking swimming riding the metro and catching the bus bearing witness to the
strange vitality of urban life. Everywhere catalysts for new understandings emerge. Pushing
his young daughter's pram turns Berlin upside-down. Students' exercises in getting lost and
reorienting themselves throw into question notions of centre and periphery. Google Maps becomes
an unexpected gallery offering new ways of encountering art and architecture. Buildings hold
their own histories and secrets illuminated by chroniclers of Hens's cities from Virginia
Woolf and Georges Perec to Rem Koolhaas and Valeria Luiselli. Even libraries become cities in
their own right. Blending memoir travelogue and philosophy with photography and literary
insights The City and the World is a witty captivating illuminating and expansive journey
into the heart of the modern city.
