Book Talk | Bruno Carvalho | The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World

Join the Institute for Public Knowledge on Wednesday, February 25 (5:30-7:00 PM) for an event with Bruno Carvalho. He will discuss his new book, The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World, with Andrew Needham. 

Bruno Carvalho specializes in urban life and how cities change. He is the author of Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro, as well as numerous articles and essays on topics ranging from eighteen-century poetry to deforestation in the Amazon. His co-edited books include Occupy All Streets: Olympic Urbanism and Contested Futures in Rio de Janeiro. He also co-edits the book series Lateral Exchanges on historical and contemporary issues in design and the built environment. At Harvard, Carvalho co-directs the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative and chairs the undergraduate program in History & Literature. He is a professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and African and African American Studies, as well as the incoming Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Design.

Andrew Needham is an associate professor of history at New York University, specializing in the history of the American West. He is the author of Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest, which explores the transformation of Phoenix and the Navajo nation in the years after World War II. The book tells the story of the far-reaching environmental and social inequalities of metropolitan growth and the roots of our contemporary coal-fueled climate change crisis. It received five book prizes, including the George Perkins Marsh Prize for the best book in environmental history, the Caughey Western History Association Prize, and the David J. Weber and Bill Clements Prize for best nonfiction work on the American Southwest.