| Abstract: |
I survey recent literature about early cities in the regional traditions of Southwest Asia, Egypt, South Asia, China, Mesoamerica, Andean South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Greece, and Rome. Major themes include the importance of theorizing individuals and their practices, interests, and emotions
the extent to which the first cities were deliberately created rather than merely emerging as by-products of increasing sociopolitical complexity
internal structure of cities and the interplay of top-down planning and bottom-up self-organization
social, economic, and political relations between cities and their hinterlands
interactions of cities with their physical environments
and the difficult city-state concept. Some axes or dimensions for describing settlements are proposed as better than typological concepts.
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