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b'During the two hundred millennia of humanity\\u2019s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such a flourishing of human endeavor\\u2014new professions, new forms of art, worship and trade\\u2014that they kick-started civilization.
Guiding us through the centuries, is today\\u2019s guest Ben Wilson, author of Metropolis: A history of the City, Humankind\\u2019s Greatest Invention. We discuss the innovations nurtured by the energy of human beings together: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle \\xc9poque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change.'