City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction

City is David Macaulay's second book. Unlike most of Macaulay's other books in this series, rather than a single building, he draws an entire city. It is interesting and I learned a lot, the Romans were more advanced with basic infrastructure like plumbing and heating than I had imagined. I think Macaulay's subject is too broad though, so he isn't able to get into the hyper-detail that otherwise is the strength of his work that makes it so fascinating. It feels like a book for 14 year olds and not enough for the adults. Still, like all of David Macaulay's books, it is well worth it.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd

Visually impressive and concise, it explains why many of the Roman ruins still stand. You also see how many of their techniques persist today, such as curbs, sewers, and grid-based layouts. It's meant for children, but I think most adults would find it interesting.

This is a Macaulay book about the founding and development of a roman city around the time of the first millennium and the techniques and tools they used to arrange the city and the engineering problems and solutions that were traditionally foreseen and addressed. It doesn’t shy away from traditions and roman cultural touchstones which might have been seen in a frontier city of the roman empire that really helps to immerse the reader in the story, shallow though it is, of this city; which, helps to really highlight the similarities of the technique used by the roman architects and engineers when we see how different their society was.

Amazing little book, if you have kids and this doesn't rock their little world you should probably give them up for adoption. Honestly, makes me cry when I remember what books are used at school to teach kids history.

Nice, easy, somewhat overdue research for the story I'm working on at the moment. It's a great peek into ancient technology and everyday life with a glimpse of politics, too.

Excellent drawings and dense with information. There's no action or excitement, but students who have an interest in classical Roman history will especially appreciate this book. Details of everyday life will surprise students who do not understand the relationship between modern ways and old ones. See other books in this series, but this one is my favorite.

Fascinating! I bought "Castle" for homeschooling this year but haven't read it yet. I read this one just for fun because of my interest in Latin and Rome and whoa! It's incredible. I decided to just buy all of Macaulay's books.