描述
God made the country, and man made the town,’ wrote William Cowper. This book is first and foremost a celebration of the town as -at least potentially- man’s greatest collective work of art. More, it reveals again and again how the city is ourselves, mirroring with precision our needs and our activities, our values and our aspirations, our confusions and our contradictions-which is why this book is also a sobering indictment of modern man’s capacity to dissipate beauty and create ugliness. Man Made the Town is a fascinating and penetrating essay on the nature of the city Michael Middleton, for seventeen years Director of the Civic Trust, has studied towns, large and small, in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. He has observed and photographed them with a sharp detachment. But because, at the same time, he is a missionary, he brings fervour to his subject, and offers convincing glimpses of town and city as they could so easily be if only we willed it sufficiently. His writing, as befits the subject, is urbane; his book an evocative plea for urban quality and the livable city.
