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>> The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor

• atoav 3y ago
  That sounds true, but as someone who made the same shift, I think it is more likely that the rural people drink themselves into a stupor. The history of human civilization is told through an ever-shifting lense. A lot of the modern problems have always been there, they just weren't seen as problems, there were no names for them or people hid it better. So if I hear such a claim, I need a good citation. Sure there are many reports of the bad situations in early industrialized cities. But how many reports of rural places that starved before had not been written because there was no one there to witness it? Cities did surely create their own breed of problems, there is no denying that, but cities also increased the visibility on problems that had existed elswhere as well.