During the past two and a half centuries, social systems based upon the hierarchical organization of transactions among a relatively few metropolitan centers sprinkled throughout a predominantly rural population have given way to urbanization. Since the early nineteenth century, systems with 40, 60, or 80 percent of their populations residing in cities have proliferated. The singularity of this growth and redistribution of human numbers since the 1700s reflects a massive and sustained growth in the production and adaptation of inanimate energy and the productivity of economic resources. Cities and Markets deals with historical aspects of this modern industrial-urban experience. In this collection, interdisciplinary experts from a variety of fields examine the industrial-urbanization process of the last two and a half centuries from several points of view, highlighting the uniqueness of the period and the process.
