I found Annalee Newitz’s "Four Lost Cities" to be, among other things, an engrossing look back through the past into daily life in these select ancient cities across, and a very informative glance at the modern-day archaeology that is able to open such windows through history in the first place.

However, I would have to say that my unexpected favorite takeaway by far was the way that the author covered these respective cities’ different declines. Whenever Newtiz discusses the unique combination of factors that led to every city’s gradual or sudden end, they always take care to focus on how these cities’ eventual ends never meant the total end of the peoples that originally made them in the first place. They often held on for as long as they could, and sometimes changed their respective cities radically in the face of growing challenges, and eventually scattered pragmatically to potentially greener pastures. But as Newtiz makes perfectly clear, none of these civilizations completely died out like many may assume when examining the ruins of their once-great cities. Rather, they and their cultures changed and evolved as necessity dictated, and if necessity made them leave their urban homes, then that was the way it was. By highlighting this worldwide and history-wide pattern of change and resilience in different urbanized environments, Newitz ends up crafting what was an unexpected message of potential hope based upon the historical and archaeological record. It’s a message that I didn’t know that I needed, but as someone living in a heavily urbanized world various challenges of its own, it’s something I definitely find myself appreciating quite a lot.