By Michael Weinstock

The Architecture of Emergence: The Evolution of Form in Nature and Civilisation is a scholarly and radical book that effectively challenges established cultural and architectural histories. It expands the conventional worldview by placing human development alongside ecological development: the history of cultural evolution and the production of cities are set in the context of processes and forms of the natural world. The emergence of the human species and the evolution of culture are shown to be closely coupled to the changes in climate and ecology, while it is described how humans have extensively modified the surface of the earth, the ecological systems that exist upon it, and the climate. As expansive in its thinking as its reach, The Architecture of Emergence draws from the life sciences, the complex systems of the physical world, anthropology, archaeology and the evolution of human culture.