The most endearing thing about this book is its ambitious scope and range, sampling from all kinds of artistic, literary, and political movements as well as theories of urban life and architecture throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The drive to distill what is essential about modernity from such a broad, eclectic set of sources makes the book feel like a relic in its own right. It reminded me what is lost in today's scholarly writing, driven by academic job market imperatives to confine itself to a subfield of an already hyper-specific discipline.

It’s a shame, because this kind of thing is fun as hell to read even when you aren’t totally on board. There was plenty I found unconvincing, especially aspects of his ‘reinterpretation’ of Marx, but those still never felt like a demerit to the project as a whole. The St. Petersburg section—the longest in the book—was a high point and would be worth reading on its own.