Richard Sennett's previous books include The Fall of Public Man, Flesh and Stone and Respect, as well as the two previous volumes in his Homo Faber trilogy, The Craftsman and Together. He was founder director of the New York Institute for the Humanities and now teaches urban studies at the London School of Economics and at Harvard University, and researches labor relations in Columbia University's Center for Capitalism and Society. He has won the Amalfi and Ebert prizes for sociology and in 2006 was awarded the Hegel Prize by the City of Stuttgart.
Distils into a single volume his thoughts on how urban design shapes the ways in which we relate to one another ... Typically idealistic, typically urbane, it is well-timed for the disputes of our day -- Justin McGuirk * New Yorker * He has brought to the study of urban life a perception that includes literature, philosophy, art, sociology and economics, as well as his personal experiences -- Rowan Moore * Observer * Sennett leavens the big ideas with snapshots of real life. ... It reads like a summation of a life lived in cities and is, ultimately, a paean to their unpredictability, a call for tolerance and a celebration of difference. -- Edwin Heathcote * Financial Times * A lateish-life appraisal of what Richard Sennett has read, written and, most vitally, witnessed on the street or in the marketplace in the tradition of the sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed flaneur taking in every sensation -- Jonathan Meades * Guardian *