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Lewis Mumford - architectural critic, theorist of technology, urbanologist, city planner, cultural critic, historian, biographer, and philosopher - was the author of more than thirty influential books, many of which expounded his views on the perils of urban sprawl and a society obsessed with "technics." Featuring a new introduction by Casey Nelson Blake, this classic text provides the essence of Mumford's views on the distinct yet interpenetrating roles of technology and the arts in modern culture. Mumford contends that modern man's overemphasis on technics has contributed to the depersonalization and emptiness of much of twentieth-century life. He issues a call for a renewed respect for artistic impulses and achievements. His repeated insistence that technological development take the Human as its measure - as well as his impassioned plea for humanity to make the most of its "splendid potentialities and promise" and reverse its progress toward anomie and destruction - is ever more relevant as the new century dawns.