New Releases by Lewis Mumford

Originally published in 1957, this volume compares the 20th Century transformation of human life to the revolution which swept early man into the first civilized communities. It shows how each radical new stage of human development grew out of changes in human personality and consciousness, such as the invention of language and symbols, the origins of universal religions and the mechanization of everyday life. Despite the threat that the author foresees from an over-reliance on automation, the book maintains that humanity still has the means, spiritual, personal and technological to create a sustainable future for itself, by increasing the usefulness and freedom of all men.

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.

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.

"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.

This is a history of the machine and a critical study of its effects on civilization. Mumford has drawn on every aspect of life to explain the machine and to trace its social results. "An extraordinarily wide-ranging, sensitive, and provocative book about a subject upon which philosophers have so far shed but little light" (Journal of Philosophy). Index; illustrations.

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.

Publisher Description

This is the third volume in Lewis Mumford''s superb "Renewal of Life" series, which also contains Technics and Civilazation, The Culture of Cities, and The Conduct of Life. The present book explores the historic development of the personality and the community. Ranging from ancient Greece to our own century, the author takes Western man over the ground of his past, singles out events that have done him injury, and reveals his latent sources of creative action, too long thrust aside in an age that depends for salvation on the machine.

Shows that man himself has from the beginning been and still is the central fact of human life today.

Buried renaissance of Root, Sullivan, Roebling, W. Homer, Eakins, Ryder, others. 12 illustrations.

Discusses the ultimate ethical and religious issues that confront modern man and offers a new orientation, directed to the renewal of life and the reintegration of modern civilization. -- Publisher''s description.

Geddes Mumford was born in New York in 1925 and was killed in Italy in 1944. Lewis Mumford''s narrative of his son''s nineteen years may be considered a memorial not to one boy only but to all the others as well, who, with their gifts and their promise, went down to darkness in the last -- must we say latest? -- war

Contains a criticism of the L.C.C. plan for the county of London prepared by J.H. Forshaw and Sir L.P. Abercrombie.

Includes new discoveries about Melville''s life and a new preface reporting the changing attitudes toward him.