In the history of literature, Lewis Mumford is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Lewis Mumford as American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology and literary critic (1895-1990).
Lewis Mumford was born at Flushing in 1895. His recorded nationality is the United States. He was educated at City College of New York and The New School.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, national institutions, mass media and mass politics changed both the scale of a career and its risks.
The record gives his occupations as architect, historian of technology and historian.
His affiliations include The Dial and The New Yorker.
The work that carried his reputation furthest concerned study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Books outlive their reviews, and the ones that last are seldom the ones that sold.
The surviving body of work includes The City in History, The Myth of the Machine and Technics and Civilization.
The honours are a fair index of how the work was received - Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and National Medal of Arts.
That the work was done from the United States matters. Opportunity has never been evenly distributed, and where a person is based shapes which doors open and whose work gets seen.
Lewis Mumford died in 1990 at the age of 95. The work outlived the arguments around it.
Achievements
- Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
- National Medal of Arts
- Notable work: The City in History
- Notable work: The Myth of the Machine
- Notable work: Technics and Civilization
- Affiliated with The Dial and The New Yorker
- Educated at City College of New York, The New School and Stuyvesant High School
- Worked as architect, historian of technology and historian
