Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs
Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Systems of Survival
A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics

Author: Jane Jacobs

Narrator: Kate Rudd

Unabridged: 9 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/13/2022


Synopsis

With intelligence and clarity of observation, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities addresses the moral values that underpin working life.In Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs identifies two distinct moral syndromes—one governing commerce, the other politics—and explores what happens when these two syndromes collide. She looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, government’s overextended subsidies to agriculture, and transit police who abuse the system the are supposed to enforce, and asks us to consider instances in which snobbery is a virtue and industry a vice. In this work of profound insight and elegance, Jacobs gives us a new way of seeing all our public transactions and encourages us towards the best use of our natural inclinations.

About Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) was a writer and activist who championed new approaches to urban planning for more than forty years. Her 1961 treatise The Death and Life of Great American Cities became perhaps the most influential American text about the inner workings and failings of cities, inspiring generations of urban planners and activists. Her efforts to stop the building of downtown expressways and protect local neighborhoods invigorated community-based urban activism and helped end Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’ reign of power in New York City.

About Kate Rudd

Kate Rudd, actress and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared in several independent films and shorts, as well as in multiple episodes of the television show Perks. As an audiobook narrator she has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael

In this slim and readable volume, Jacobs articulates the two moral systems humans have evolved over the centuries: that of traders (commerce), and that of guardians (government). Once stated, they seem so obvious, but failure to recognize the differences results in serious chaos. This book was a big......more

Goodreads review by Seth

This book is fantastic but everyone forgets to read the sequel, The Nature of Economies. Don't be like them. Read The Nature of Economies too.......more

Goodreads review by Guy

This is a profoundly important book! Jacob's observation that a failure to understand that there is a difference in moral character required between those who are guardians of a society and those who are its entrepreneurs is important and pertinent. She argues that a society will fail if it allows i......more

Goodreads review by laura

if you're a hard-nosed literary critic it's going to be really hard for you to get past the central conceit of this sociology book-- it's written as a dialogue, with characters and a bare minimum of plot-- and while it's also written by one of the greatest urbanists and essayists to ever walk the pl......more

Goodreads review by Andrea

I was really looking forward to this as my first Jane Jacobs book, but I was disappointed. I found the faux-Socratic dialogue jarring and not believable, and the system they put together was at least lacking one element: survival-by-community. Our instincts for fostering social relationships would n......more


Quotes

“Altogether magnificent…Probably no single thinker has done more in the last fifty years to transform our ideas about the nature of urban life.” Chicago Tribune

“[With] piercing analysis, crystalline prose and [a] finely-honed sense of morality, Jacobs covers an amazing amount of ground.” Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Superb…Cobbling together a little urban anthropology, a little economic history, and a vast store of highly nuanced personal observations…Jacobs is an indispensable provocateur.” Village Voice Literary Supplement