Cities and Markets Author:Rondo Cameron During the past two and a half centuries, social systems based upon the hierarchical organization of transactions among a relatively few metropolitan centers sprinkled throughout a predominantly rural population have given way to urbanization. Since the early nineteenth century, systems with 40, 60, or 80 percent of their populations residing in... more » cities have proliferated. The singularity of this growth and redistribution of human numbers since the 1700s reflects a massive and sustained growth in the production and adaptation of inanimate energy and the productivity of economic resources. "Cities and Markets" deals with historical aspects of this modern industrial-urban experience. In this collection, interdisciplinary experts from a variety of fields examine the industrial-urbanization process of the last two and a half centuries from several points of view, highlighting the uniqueness of the period and the process.« less