Book Talk: Bruno Carvalho in Conversation with Diane Davis at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store and Long Now Boston welcome Bruno Carvalho—Harvard University professor and author of Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro—for a discussion of his new book, The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World. He will be joined in conversation by Diane E. Davis—Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, and former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. 

About The Invention of the Future

A kaleidoscopic and original new history of urbanization—from Lisbon to New York, Paris to Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires to Lagos.

For the past three centuries, urban dwellers and planners have imagined future cities that would be radically different from those of the past. Planners pursued progress, whether focused on flying vehicles above, sewage systems below, or daily life in between. Yet, as Bruno Carvalho shows in this original and wide-ranging history, which features some sixty illustrations, modern cities continuously defied predictions. Visionary designs and technological innovations created dramatic, unforeseen outcomes, and the ongoing urban boom is a story of continuity as well as rupture. A compelling history of imagined futures and the transformation of urban life, The Invention of the Future also suggests what we might learn from the stories of our cities as we shape them for the twenty-first century.

Moving between large-scale changes and detailed examples, this captivating narrative tells the story of key moments and turning points: the rebuilding of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake; the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan for Manhattan; Parisian reforms from 1853 to 1870; Le Corbusier’s plans for South American cities in the 1920s and 1930s; the postwar victory of the car; the utopian capital of Brasília; and urban growth in Africa.

In recent decades, Carvalho argues, the capacity to invent urban futures has become increasingly constrained. Social and environmental challenges loom large. But the story is not over. While cities helped create current problems, compact and transit-rich urbanization might be our best hope to combine high living standards with sustainability. Sometimes, moving forward can involve reaching back to the future.

Praise for The Invention of the Future

“At a time when urban downtowns are struggling to reinvent themselves in the wake of the Covid pandemic, Bruno Carvalho’s ambitious book is a powerful reminder that planners, architects, writers, artists, and politicians have long been imagining new futures for their cities. With Carvalho as a dazzling guide, we travel back in time and across the globe from Europe and the Americas to Africa and Asia, discovering three centuries of city dreamers.” —Lizabeth Cohen, Bancroft Prize–winning author of Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age

“Witty, erudite, playful, and serious, The Invention of the Future is a book about cities but also so much more. It is about how we have lived together in the past, and how we might live in, and reclaim, the future. A brilliant, one-of-a-kind book in which every reader will learn something new on every page.” —Jonathan Levy, author of Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States

“The Invention of the Future takes readers on a rich and revealing journey through the cities of the Atlantic world, illuminating centuries of metropolitan growth and urban visions. Bruno Carvalho offers us a fascinating intellectual odyssey that joins historical narrative with past imaginings of things to come.” —A. K. Sandoval-Strausz, editor of Metropolitan Latinidad: Transforming American Urban History

Bios

Bruno Carvalho is a professor at Harvard University, where he teaches courses on cities. He is the author of Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro.

Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism and former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). She also is the director of the Mexican Cities Initiative at the GSD, and faculty chair of the committee on Mexico at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. Davis’s research interests include the relations between urbanization and national development, urban governance, urban social movements, and informality, with a special emphasis on Mexico. Her books include Transforming Urban Transport (Oxford: 2018), among other titles.

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

Co-Sponsor

Long Now Boston encourages long-term awareness and responsibility on issues that shape a sustainable world for our descendants. Learn more at www.longnowboston.org/. 

This event is free; no tickets are required.