Lewis Mumford

Lewis Mumfords achievements as an architectural critic, literary critic and urbanist are well known. However, his contribution to the American studies movement and to cultural studies in general has almost been forgotten in recent years. By situating Mumfords work in its contemporary intellectual context and by considering some of its legacies for the study of culture and civilization especially in the nascent field of American studies this book considers Mumford as an author, drawing out some of the expressive, political and methodological significance of this term. In an attempt to counter frequent arguments that Mumfords works are inconsistent, repetitive and derivative, the author argues that, taken as a whole, they demonstrate a consistent inter-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary critical project, and that Mumfords thought is comparable with that of Marx and Weber. The book traces this critical project through Mumfords works from the early twentieth century and also through his formal process of writing. The author aims to show that Mumfords project was neither provincial nor reactionary, as some have argued, but was instead a dynamic juxtaposition of past and present that enabled him to imagine a future where humans might fulfil their potential in a more perfectly republican, even utopian, urban space.