Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984)

The first chapter is a standard review of basic economic theoriests, in which Jacobs sets the stage for a thesis that ranges over many centuries and the world. When production drops one place and the former workers are not provided for there is major econommic hardship. Jacobs has many tidbits of "did you know"s...that the Isle of Man and Iceland had parliaments before Great Britain, and Uraguay was once a thriving country. ( )

Much as I loved _Death and Life_, I just couldn't get through this one. There were a lot of interesting ideas, and I wish I'd read this before struggling to write something about cities and economics and theory in grad school -- she ties together some interesting threads on that one. But her autodidacticism, which served her so well in _Death and Life_ (whose thesis called chiefly for keen observation of things available for anyone to see), doesn't work here -- I keep wondering if she's out of her depth. Things didn't ring true, and I got annoyed and never did read the last few chapters. ( )

http://www.archidose.org/books/jacobs.html ( )