Building and Dwelling

“The sociologist and urbanist Richard Sennett is a thoughtful writer with far-ranging interests and a keen eye for hidden patterns and complex processes that may escape the casual observer. . . . His first book, The Uses of Disorder, published almost 50 years ago (1970), was a reflection on the value of anti-authoritarian or anti-hierarchical ‘anarchy’ in city life, and his new book, his 15th, is a more elaborate, and more sophisticated, take on his original insights.”—Shlomo Angel, Wall Street Journal

“[Building and Dwelling] distills into a single volume [Sennett’s] thoughts on how urban design shapes the ways in which we relate to one another. . . . Sennett is as passionate as ever about the richness and complexity of public life. . . . [He] needles Google’s New York headquarters, which he finds to be an island frat house, introspective and infantile, ‘in the city but not of it.’ . . . Part of the charm of Building and Dwelling is its intimacy. . . . There is an extraordinary account of ethnic relations in the Hatton Garden community of London where Sennett lives. . . . Well-timed for the disputes of our day.”—Justin McGuirk, New Yorker

“[Building and Dwelling] reads like the summation of a life lived in cities and is, ultimately, a paean to their unpredictability, a call for tolerance and a celebration of difference.”—Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times

“Constantly stimulating ideas from a veteran of urban thinking.”—Jonathan Meades, The Guardian

“Thank god for Richard Sennett. . . . Essential reading for all students of the city.”—Anna Minton, Prospect

“An intellectual romp.”—Los Angeles Review of Books