Another birthday present; this one from Patrick Stephenson.
This is a geographical/historical picture, city by major city, of the world in 1913. I found the first few chapters, about the old European imperial cities, London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, St Petersburg, quite tedious and repetitive as the cultures and intrinsic issues within these places were structurally similar.
But, when we crossed the Atlantic in particular it picked up: he picked Washington (presidents and puritans), New York (money and immigrants), Detroit (cars) and Los Angeles for the USA, and we then went to Bombay, Durban (I knew little about Indians in South Africa), Jerusalem, Tehran and finally the Far East = Peking and Shanghai a little like Washington and New York.
Fascinating at times, also hard work!
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