{"title":"Monica L Smith","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"cities-book-monica-l-smith-9781471163654","title":"Cities","description":"A FASCINATING INVESTIGATION INTO THE HISTORY OF CITIES: WHY DID THEY OCCUR, HOW HAVE THEY EVOLVED, WHY DO SO MANY OF US CHOOSE TO LIVE IN THEM AND HOW DO THEY AFFECT US?   ‘Monica Smith is the person best qualified to write a book about the big problems raised by the increasing concentration of the human population into cities. She also has a gift for vivid writing that will make the science of cities come to life for the broad public. I expect that CITIES will be a great read and will sell well.’ Jared Diamond, author of Collapse     Over half of the world’s population lives in an urban area and cities around the globe are getting bigger and bigger.  Love them or hate them, more and more of us are choosing to live in them.  Cities investigates the following intriguing questions: why did cities start to occur around 6,000 years ago, how have they evolved, why do so many of us choose to live in them, how do they affect us, and what does the future hold at a time when we’re increasingly connected by technology?     In Cities, Monica L. Smith points out that, even if you don’t live in a city, your life is inevitably affected by one, whether you commute into one for work, sell coffee beans to a company that supplies urban coffee shops, or host city-dwelling tourists seeking adventure and respite from the city in your remote village.     Using fascinating anecdotes and research findings from her work as an archaeologist, Smith also reveals that many of the problems that we associate with modern cities (violence, hyperconsumption, etc.) have, in fact, always existed.  And, more positively, how many of the things that draw us to cities in modern times (educational and economic opportunities, social mobility, culture) are the things that have drawn us to them since they first appeared.    She also makes the controversial argument that it’s down to cities that the middle class exists and she examines why social movements flourish in cities in a way they rarely do in rural settings.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49588692058385,"sku":"GOR009805842","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732729405713,"sku":"NGR9781471163654","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50729316352273,"sku":"GOR013026614","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1471163652.jpg?v=1751455237"},{"product_id":"skinwalkers-book-monica-l-smith-9781730796029","title":"Skinwalkers","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49774045430033,"sku":"CIN1730796028G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50399923732753,"sku":"CIN1730796028VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1730796028.jpg?v=1751279671"},{"product_id":"cities-book-monica-l-smith-9780735223677","title":"Cities","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis is a must-read book for any city dweller with a voracious appetite for understanding the wonders of cities and why we're so attracted to them.--Zahi Hawass, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e A] compelling journey from city life in ancient urban centers to the present and beyond.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Science\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA sweeping history of cities through the millennia--from Mesopotamia to Manhattan--and how they have propelled Homo sapiens to dominance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSix thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and that number is growing. Weaving together archeology, history, and contemporary observations, Monica Smith explains the rise of the first urban developments and their connection to our own. She takes readers on a journey through the ancient world of Tell Brak in modern-day Syria; Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan in Mexico; her own digs in India; as well as the more well-known Pompeii, Rome, and Athens. Along the way, she presents the unique properties that made cities singularly responsible for the flowering of humankind: the development of networked infrastructure, the rise of an entrepreneurial middle class, and the culture of consumption that results in everything from take-out food to the tell-tale secrets of trash. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eCities\u003c\/i\u003e is an impassioned and learned account full of fascinating details of daily life in ancient urban centers, using archaeological perspectives to show that the aspects of cities we find most irresistible (and the most annoying) have been with us since the very beginnings of urbanism itself. She also proves the rise of cities was hardly inevitable, yet it was crucial to the eventual global dominance of our species--and that cities are here to stay.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50324741194001,"sku":"CIN073522367XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51925300773137,"sku":"GOR014464892","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52329703964945,"sku":"CIN073522367XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/073522367X.jpg?v=1751295323"},{"product_id":"prehistory-of-ordinary-people-book-monica-l-smith-9780816526956","title":"A Prehistory of Ordinary People","description":"For the past million years, individuals have engaged in multitasking as they interact with the surrounding environment and with each other for the acquisition of daily necessities such as food and goods. Although culture is often perceived as a collective process, it is individual people who use language, experience illness, expend energy, perceive landscapes, and create memories. These processes were sustained at the individual and household level from the time of the earliest social groups to the beginnings of settled agricultural communities and the eventual development of complex societies in the form of chiefdoms, states, and empires. Even after the advent of civilization about 6,000 years ago, human culture has for the most part been created and maintained not by the actions of elites-as is commonly proclaimed by many archaeological theorists-but by the many thousands of daily actions carried out by average citizens. With this book, Monica L. Smith examines how the archaeological record of ordinary objects-used by ordinary people-constitutes a manifestation of humankind's cognitive and social development. A Prehistory of Ordinary People offers an impressive synthesis and accessible style that will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and others interested in the long history of human decision-making.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50368060522769,"sku":"CIN0816526958G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51915277140241,"sku":"CIN0816526958VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0816526958.jpg?v=1763484167"},{"product_id":"cities-book-monica-l-smith-9780735223684","title":"Cities","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis is a must-read book for any city dweller with a voracious appetite for understanding the wonders of cities and why we're so attracted to them.--Zahi Hawass, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e A] compelling journey from city life in ancient urban centers to the present and beyond.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Science\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA sweeping history of cities through the millennia--from Mesopotamia to Manhattan--and how they have propelled Homo sapiens to dominance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSix thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. 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Collectively they demonstrate how complex networks of social relations and structures gave rise to the formation of ancient cities, contributed to their cohesion, and sustained their growth, much as they do in modern urban centers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe authors' analyses draw from ancient texts as well as archaeological surveys and excavations of urban architecture and other material remains, including portable objects for daily use and comestibles. They show clearly how early urban dwellers consciously developed dense interdependent social networks to satisfy their needs for food, housing, and employment, forged their own urban identities, and generally managed to thrive in the crowded, bustling, and competitive environment that characterized ancient cities. 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Economists frequently focus on scarcity as a driving principle in the development of social and economic hierarchies, yet focusing on plenitude enables the understanding of a range of cohesive behaviors that were equally important for the development of social complexity.  Our earliest human ancestors were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who sought out places that provided ample food, water, and raw materials. Over time, humans accumulated and displayed an increasing quantity and variety of goods. In households, shrines, tombs, caches, and dumps, archaeologists have discovered large masses of materials that were deliberately gathered, curated, distributed, and discarded by ancient peoples. The volume’s authors draw upon new economic theories to consider the social, ideological, and political implications of human engagement with abundant quantities of resources and physical objects and consider how individual and household engagements with material culture were conditioned by the quest for abundance.  Abundance shows that the human propensity for mass consumption is not just the result of modern production capacities but fulfills a longstanding focus on plenitude as both the assurance of well-being and a buffer against uncertainty. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in economics, anthropology, and cultural studies.  Contributors: Traci Ardren, Amy Bogaard, Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, Christopher R. Moore, Tito E. Naranjo, Stacey Pierson, James M. Potter, François G. Richard, Christopher W. Schmidt, Carol Schultze, Payson Sheets, Monica L. Smith, Katheryn C. Twiss, Mark D. Varien, Justin St. P. 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Using the concept of “agency” as one in which multiple sentient and nonhuman actors interact in a landscape, and exploring locations such as the Caribbean, the Pacific, South Asia, the Andes, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and the Arctic, the authors provide compelling explanations of the effect of an entire realm of natural powers that beset human societies past and present—from storms, earthquakes, and fires to vegetation, domestic animals, and wild birds. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical and engineering adjustments that people make to stay resilient when facing the perpetual changes of the natural world.     Using an archaeological perspective, The Power of Nature illustrates and analyzes the many  ways that people do not control their environments. It will be of interest to archaeologists, as well as scholars in science, biology, botany, forestry, urban studies, and disaster management.    Contributors: Steven Ammeran, Traci Ardren, Katelyn J. 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