From Urbanization to Cities: Toward a New Politics of Citizenship

by Murray Bookchin

In this scholarly critique, Murray Bookchin sets out his ideas about the nature of community. Bookchin presents resounding arguments suggesting that the tension between rural and urban societies can be a vital source of human creativity, potentially enabling the power of the individual and restoring the positive values and quality of urban life. Tracing the history of the city from pre-history through the Ancient Greek "polis" to the medieval city state, Bookchin reclaims the idea of the city as a major creative force in our civilization. Advocating a new approach to politics, this work offers a case for a new municipal agenda revitalizing citizenship and city life.

Genres: Politics, Cities, Sociology, Urbanism, History, Urban Studies

Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

About the author

Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics, philosophy, history, and urban affairs as well as ecology. In the late 1990s he became disenchanted with the strategy of political Anarchism and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called Communalism.

Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.

Reviews

[Autumn · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be clear, this book is history, not theory. As a person who is very committed to Bookchin's thought, I found this book to be quite a departure from his more analytical or theoretical works. It offers very little in terms of theoretical contributions to social ecology or anarchism. And, surprisingly, there isn't much about what urbanization actually is. Rather, it is simply a history of the city - from tribal organization, to ancient agora, to medieval commune, and finally to nation-state. It achieves being a history quite well, so if you want to read a history text, this would definitely be a good book. However, its lack of theory and lack of analysis of the present, as well as the mundane nature of the text (seemingly endless discussion about very tedious details of ancient and medieval society) was more than enough to turn me off of it.

[NOLaBookish aka blue-collared mind · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been referred to Bookchin by Planet Drum, and am glad to have found him. This book is a defined argument against the role of city residents as simply taxpayers, and argues for a fully re-realized role of citizen instead. His work on social ecology is well known and his libertarian impulses have sent him to the far- well the far out as I am never sure where to slot libertarians, as they roam the political spectrum quite freely.
As for this particular book, I was glad to see another tome asking for city controlled by its citizens, it does my heart good in these dark days of federal control of New Orleans.
But I do hear you out there-shouldn't we ask for a full accounting of our taxes and what they are used for from our elected and non-elected city officials? Yes, but is that all?
I would say that Bookchin is adept at thinking through the idea of asking for more power than just the sheets showing decisions made by your city people- instead, a return to direct democracy and day to day power held by its citizenry is in order and can be obtained.