Book Review: Of Urban Destruction And Renewal

"As New Yorkers set about designing and building whatever will stand in the place of the Twin Towers, they would do well to consult Anthony M. Tung's masterly Preserving the World's Great Cities...This far-reaching book, the result of those travels, weaves well-told tales of urban destruction and renewal, using preservation and planning as the prism through which history is viewed. For example, Tung examines Warsaw's painstaking postwar restoration of its 17th century Old Town, itself a reconstruction of an older neighborhood destroyed by fire. He looks at how religious conflict has devastated Jerusalem and how Berlin wrestles with its dark past as it has recovered from World War II--and three decades of being split by the Wall. In each chapter, he evaluates varying approaches to preservation, seeking solutions that might stem the destruction and loss of historical treasure that go hand in hand with development."