New Releases by Lewis Mumford

En este hermoso y valioso volumen, Lewis Mumford hace balance crítico del pensamiento utópico: su historia, sus fundamentos básicos, sus aportaciones positivas, sus cargas negativas y sus debilidades. Releyendo las utopías más conocidas e influyentes y los mitos sociales que han desempeñado un papel de primer orden en Occidente, y contrastándolos con las utopías sociales parciales todavía recientes, Mumford valora el impacto que todas estas ideas podrían tener en cualquier nuevo camino hacia Utopía que estemos dispuestos a emprender. Presentamos por primera vez en castellano el primer libro que publicó Lewis Mumford, escrito con apenas veintisiete años, y que no dejó de reeditar a lo largo de toda su prolífica vida. La edición que presentamos cuenta además con un prólogo que el propio Mumford redactó casi cincuenta años después de su edición original. En un momento en el que cada vez se escuchan más voces que hablan de la necesidad de que la sociedad cambie de rumbo, y en un tiempo en el que todas las brújulas parecen irremediablemente rotas, este libro se antoja una lectura básica por su fino análisis, por su anticipación y por la lucidez propia del pensamiento de Mumford.

A classic of American cultural history, Sticks and Stones is a discussion of early New England towns, Colonial and Federal architectural periods, and various important 19th-century architects like Henry Hobson Richardson. You will enjoy learning about the architecture making up some of the most beautiful towns in the United States.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), le celebre architecte et theoricien de l''architecture organique, et l''historien et critique Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) ont joue un role crucial dans l''histoire de l''architecture et de l''urbanisme, comme en temoignent les quelque cent cinquante lettres qu''ils ont echangees de 1926 a 1959. Cette correspondance passionnante, clairvoyante et spirituelle, mais non depourvue de tensions, illustre a merveille le debat intellectuel sur l''architecture americaine et internationale du xxe siecle. C''est l''architecte, alors age de presque soixante ans et dans une phase difficile au milieu de sa carriere, qui prend l''initiative d''ecrire au jeune critique newyorkais, tout juste trentenaire, pour le remercier de son soutien. Toujours au fait de l''evolution contemporaine de l''architecture, les deux hommes evoquent, au fil du temps, leurs oeuvres respectives, leurs allies et leurs adversaires, l''avenement du Style international et les evenements politiques qui bouleversent l''Europe et les Etats-Unis. Ils s''opposent a la severe orthodoxie de modernistes comme Le Corbusier et pronent tous deux un meilleur usage de l''architecture et de la technologie au profit de l''humanite et de l''environnement, un point de vue qui faisait presque exception dans le panorama architectural de l''entredeux-guerres. Affectueux et elogieux, Wright tient a l''approbation de Mumford et aspire a un rapport plus etroit. Plus prudent, souhaitant conserver son independance en tant que critique, Mumford refuse les multiples invitations de Wright a lui rendre visite dans son domaine de Taliesin, mais il n''en admire pas moins l''oeuvre de l''architecte qui l''inspire. La Seconde Guerre mondiale interrompt brutalement cet echange profond et fecond, Mumford etant partisan de l''intervention des Etats-Unis en Europe, et Wright pacifiste et protectionniste. La correspondance ne reprendra que dix ans plus tard, a l''initiative de Wright. Une fois reconcilies, malgre leurs desaccords politiques et esthetiques, ces deux geants de la culture americaine, a la fois conservateurs et iconoclastes, multiplient les temoignages d''affection et d''admiration.

A classic work advocating ecological urban planning—from a civic visionary and former architecture critic for the New Yorker. Considered among the greatest works of Lewis Mumford—a prolific historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and longtime architecture critic for the New Yorker—The Culture of Cities is a call for communal action to “rebuild the urban world on a sounder human foundation.” First published in 1938, this radical investigation into the human environment is based on firsthand surveys of North American and European locales, as well as extensive historical and technological research. Mumford takes readers from the compact, worker-friendly streets of medieval hamlets to the symmetrical neoclassical avenues of Renaissance cities. He studies the squalor of nineteenth-century factory towns and speculates on the fate of the booming twentieth-century Megalopolis—whose impossible scale, Mumford believes, can only lead to its collapse into a “Nekropolis,” a monstrosity of living death. A civic visionary, Mumford is credited with some of the earliest proposals for ecological urban planning and the appropriate use of technology to create balanced living environments. In the final chapters of The Culture of Cities, he outlines possible paths toward utopian future cities that could be free of the stressors of the Megalopolis, in sync with the rhythms of daily life, powered by clean energy, integrated with agricultural regions, and full of honest and comfortable housing for the working class. The principles set forth by these visions, once applied to Nazi-occupied Europe’s razed cities, are still relevant today as technological advances and overpopulation change the nature of urban life.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"La ciudad en la historia Lewis Mumford arranca de una interpretación radicalmente innovadora sobre el origen y la naturaleza de la ciudad, y sigue su evolución en Egipto y Mesopotamia pasando por Grecia, Roma y la Edad Media hasta llegar al mundo moderno. En lugar de aceptar que el destino de la ciudad sea la tendencia a la congestión metropolitana, la expansión descontrolada de los suburbios y la desintegración social, Mumford esboza un orden que integre las instalaciones técnicas con las necesidades biológicas y las normas sociales. Tan convincente como exhaustiva, esta obra de Mumford "es mucho más que el estudio de la cultura urbana a lo largo de los siglos, es una revitalización de las civilizaciones" (Kirkuk Reviews). Este libro, que nunca antes se había editado en España, fue reconocido como una obra excepcional desde el momento de su publicación en 1961 y fue ampliamente laureado y galardonado con diversos premios, entre ellos el National" -- Publiarq: publicaciones de arquitectura y arte.

Technics and Civilization first presented its compelling history of the machine and critical study of its effects on civilization in 1934—before television, the personal computer, and the Internet even appeared on our periphery. Drawing upon art, science, philosophy, and the history of culture, Lewis Mumford explained the origin of the machine age and traced its social results, asserting that the development of modern technology had its roots in the Middle Ages rather than the Industrial Revolution. Mumford sagely argued that it was the moral, economic, and political choices we made, not the machines that we used, that determined our then industrially driven economy. Equal parts powerful history and polemic criticism, Technics and Civilization was the first comprehensive attempt in English to portray the development of the machine age over the last thousand years—and to predict the pull the technological still holds over us today. “The questions posed in the first paragraph of Technics and Civilization still deserve our attention, nearly three quarters of a century after they were written.”—Journal of Technology and Culture

Between 1928 and 1981 architectural and cultural critic Lewis Mumford exchanged nearly six hundred letters with Melville scholar and Harvard psychologist Henry A. Murray. "In Old Friendship" documents that richly rewarding interaction. Covering fifty years of devoted camaraderie between two exceptional minds, the book offers profound insights into the intellectual frustrations behind their significant careers and the emotional needs that framed their vibrant, often dramatic lives. To Mumford, a writer who sought to change the course of world events, iconoclastic Murray became a welcome confidant, critic, mentor, and friend. The letters reflect the wide range of public and private interests held by both men. Love’s entanglements are aired alongside literary labors. By chronicling the private worlds of these intellectual icons, this volume emerges as a crucial research tool for students of American intellectual history and culture, literary criticism, urbanism, architecture, and political arenas such as World War II and the Cold War. It offers a unique prism through which to observe the dramatic shifts in American society and culture in the twentieth century.

"Superbly crafted little essays, Lewis Mumford''s New Yorker pieces called ''The Art Galleries'' well deserve this handsome republication. They offer supremely tasteful guided tours of the galleries and museums of Manhattan at the time when the canon of Western art, including modernism, was being secured, against a background of tension between abstraction and realism and between aestheticism and social commitment. The essays are a gift for our own troubled times from one of the great humane and versatile critics of the twentieth century; they offer the reassurance of urbanity, poise, and commitment to art as a primary social necessity."—Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Grey Emeritus Professor of English, Yale University

Their 160 letters from 1926-1958 covered a wide range of topics, including Wright''s position on the history of American architecture and contemporary practice, their friends and rivals, the invention and spread of the International Style, and political events in Europe and the United States.".

Lewis Mumford was the author of more than thirty influential books, many of which expounded his views on the perils of urban sprawl and a society obsessed with technics. This text provides the essence of Mumford''s views on the distinct yet interpenetrating roles of technology and the arts in modern culture.

Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) is best known for his Sky Line column in the New Yorker where he served as architecture critic for over 30 years. A man of letters and part of Manhattan''s intellectual elite, Mumford wrote more than 20 books over 6 decades, bridging the seemingly disparate disciplines of architecture, technology, literary criticism, biography, sociology and philosophy.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"''The Lewis Mumford/David Liebovitz Letters'' will delight anyone who likes to observe the interplay of mind and spirit between intelligent and cultivated people. The civilized intercourse reflected here is a refreshing antidote to the grinding pettiness of much of daily life. . . . Professor Knapp has done lovers of civilized discourse a real service by compiling these letters. Through her work, the reader may witness the profound communication of two lively and thoughtful men."THE ROUND TABLE OF THE SOUTH CENTRAL COLLEGE ENGLISH ASSOCIATION

Revealing a new side of Mumford''s remarkable personality - his formative years, this volume records how he grew up in New York City in the early 20th century, reminisces about his German extended family, his life as a penurious student, his early struggles as a writer in Greenwich Village and the events and people that shaped his thinking.

Studies in literature, history, biography, technics, and contemporary society. 522p. Index. Bibliography. - Amazon.

An in-depth look at the forces that have shaped modern technology since prehistoric times. Mumford criticizes the modern trend of technology, which emphasizes constant, unrestricted expansion, production, and replacement. He contends that these goals work against technical perfection, durability, social efficiency, and overall human satisfaction. Modern technology fails to produce lasting, quality products by using devices such as consumer credit, installment buying, non-functioning and defective designs, built-in fragility, and frequent superficial "fashion" changes. "Without constant enticement by advertising," he writes, "production would slow down and level off to normal replacement demand. Otherwise many products could reach a plateau of efficient design which would call for only minimal changes from year to year."