Urban Life: Readings in the Anthropology of the City

by Gmelch Zenner, Walter P. Zenner

What does urban mean? How do places and spaces change when they become urban? Why are people drawn to cities? How do anthropologists and others study urban places and the people who occupy them? These are some of the questions explored in this compelling and extensively revised fifth edition. As before, Urban Life is topically and geographically wide ranging, with well-crafted contributions offering expert coverage of urban fieldwork experiences, theoretical concepts, and new research from an anthropological perspective. The book is organized into five fieldwork, communities, structures and institutions, migration and adaptation, and globalization and transnationalism. Each part includes an introduction that provides background for its chapters. Each chapter begins with a headnote that highlights its significance. The richly ethnographic content of each chapter appeals to students and encourages them to reconsider their preconceptions about the social life and character of cities and city dwellers. Titles of related interest also available from Waveland Lyon-Driskell, The Community in Urban Society, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577667414) and Shannon, Urban Problems in Sociological Perspective, Fourth Edition (ISBN 9781577661955).

Genres: Anthropology, Urban, Nonfiction, Urban Studies

408 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2001

Reviews

[Lindsay]

Read for an urban anthropology course.

[Daniel Rios · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes a deep look into city life dating all the way back to early cities and showing how they progressed. It literally breaks down the entire way cities run going all the way back to villages and ranging all the way to the "City States" that we now live in (Tokyo, New York, Chicago, etc.) Sometimes it is a little bland because the book consists of many different types of journal entries, but it does break down the very foundations of the many ways that cities work. I thought it was fun to read, but then again its my major...lol.

[Mills College Library]

599.97 U725 2010