Cities
Ancient cities were often highly militarized and fortified defensive settlements. In times of war they were the central focus of armed conflict and would be sacked and ruined in defeat. Although less central to modern conflict, vast areas of 20th century cities such as Warsaw, Dresden, Coventry, London and Berlin were left in ruins following World War II, and a number of major cities around the world – such as Beirut, Kabul, Sarajevo, Grozny and Baghdad – have been partially or completely ruined in recent years as a result of more localised warfare.
Entire cities have also been ruined, and some occasionally lost completely, to natural disasters. The ancient city of Pompeii was completely lost during a volcanic eruption in the 1st century CE, its uncovered ruins now preserved as a World Heritage Site. The city of Lisbon was totally destroyed in 1755 by a massive earthquake and tsunami, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake left the city in almost complete ruin.
Read more about this topic: Ruin
Famous quotes containing the word cities:
“I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lacks an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school—
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
“Lord, how long?”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 6:11.
Asking how long will the chastisement of the people last. God replies, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed man far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.”