Less than two centuries later, the urbanites have become an absolute majority. No other development during that period—world wars, the spread of democracy, the use of electricity, the Internet—has had as transformative and widespread an impact on the lived experience of being human. The history books tend to orient themselves around nationalist story lines: overthrowing the king, electing the presidents, fighting the battles. But the history book of recent Homo sapiens as a species should begin and end with one narrative line: We became city dwellers.
