<b>“In essays that bespeak a thoroughly cosmopolitan sensibility, Githa Hariharan not only takes us&nbsp;on illuminating tours through cities rich in history, but gives a voice to urban people from all over&nbsp;the world—Kashmir, Palestine, Delhi—trying to live with basic human dignity under&nbsp;circumstances of dire repression or crushing poverty.” —JM Coetzee</b><br><br>What does a medieval city in South India have in common with Washington D.C.? How do&nbsp;people in Kashmir imagine the freedom they long for? To whom does Delhi, city of grand&nbsp;monuments and hidden slums, actually belong? And what makes a city, or any place, home? In&nbsp;ten intricately carved essays, renowned author Githa Hariharan tackles these questions and&nbsp;takes readers on an eye-opening journey across time and place, exploring the history,&nbsp;landscape, and people that have shaped the world’s most fascinating and fraught cities.<br><br>Inspired by Italo Calvino’s playful and powerful writing about journeys and cities, Harihan&nbsp;combines memory, cultural criticism, and history to sculpt fascinating, layered stories about the&nbsp;places around the world—from Delhi, Mumbai, and Kashmir to Palestine, Algeria, and eleventhcentury&nbsp;Córdoba, from Tokyo to New York and Washington. In narrating the lives of these&nbsp;place’s vanquished and marginalized, she plumbs the depths of colonization and nationbuilding,&nbsp;poverty and war, the fight for human rights and the day-to-day business of survival.