Customer Reviews

The Pig and the Skyscraper: Chicago: A History of Our Future

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Chicago as it is. The history of Capitalism and the history of American power have never been disected like this before. This is a good intro to those who are interested in cultural studies and their relevance to our every day lives. This is a superb work in the line of Braudel, Jared Diamond and Mike Davis.

Ably translated into English by Graeme Thomson, The Pig And The Skyscraper, Chicago: A History Of Our Future by Marco d'Eramo is a serious-minded and acutely insightful social analysis of Chicago as the penultimate example of the modern metropolis. From Chicago's humble origins to its towering rise in world prestige to the churning capitalism that keeps it running, The Pig and the Skyscraper looks closely at America's famous windy city and pulls no punches regarding the dark side of urban sprawl. A fascinating, in-depth account, The Pig And The Skyscraper is especially recommended reading for students of Urban Studies and the historical, contemporary, and future development of metropolitan Chicago.

This book is a worthless exploration of the city through the dubious analytic framework utilized by Mike Davis in "City of Quartz." What separates that book is Davis' intimate familiarity with Los Angeles as a lifelong resident. Whereas D'Eramo is an Italian who's polemic is as cliched as any other European assessment of America which comfortably embraces false stereotypes and broad generalizations about american urban culture. What mystifies me about these modern marxist urban theorists is they vilify modern american cities, yet ultimately believe that cities provide the best social mechanism for engineering their normative philosophies.
anyway, none of this is to imply that Chicago is immune from criticism. It is, as is any city. It's has a sordid history of racism, corruption, an dubious institutional choices. But any comprehensive analysis of Chicago that refuses to recognize Chicago's virtues or at least attempt to understand Chicago on Chicagoans terms is intellectually bankrupt and a worthless read. If you want great polemic pick up the works of the great chicago polemicists Algren and Royko, not the work of this Italian Huckster