Twelve Cities.

by John Gunther

Gunther descibes in scope and detail 12 major cities of the world

Genres: History, Travel

370 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1969

About the author

John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful and cozy history.

General readers and urban planners will alike benefit from the read. The author has a real skill for getting to the essence of a city and its people. There are passages here if real skill and cozy worldbuilding. This reader wishes he could spend some time in the Vienna of the 1960s, and was happy to learn that there is a proper way to balance coffee with iced water from the Alps.


There is not much political analysis here, yet there is some of worth. Gunther is neither an Ugly American nor a Communist nor apathetic. Instead of doctrinaire criticism or denialism, Gunther accepts a city for how it is, but places a few criticisms when merited on topics of crime, congestion, or social collapse. The author even gets in a topical despair on the ability of Israel to assimilate its Palestinians.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book. It gives a clear picture of what life was like in these 12 cities in the late 1960s, focusing in particular on city government and local politics. The chapters on Warsaw and Moscow were especially interesting for providing a glimpse into how eastern bloc cities were run, as were the chapters on Jerusalem, Amman, and Beirut in the immediate aftermath of the six day war.

[Paul Jarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. I first read it as an impressionable teenager(1970s) wanting to spend my life travelling the world. Got this book from my local library and there and then decided I would go and live in London the first chance I got, then somehow get to the other places(have done some but not others). Three years ago I bought a copy from an online bookseller and read it again in one day. Gunther was a consummate journalist who wrote with authority and with an eye to entertainment also and these descriptions of various cities in the late 1960s capture the atmosphere , real or otherwise (swinging London, student Paris 1968) perfectly.