There is something about the very idea of a city which is central to the understanding of a planet like Earth, and particularly the understanding of that part of the then-existing group-civilization which called itself the West. That idea, to my mind, met its materialist apotheosis in Berlin at the time of the
Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art
berlin, cities, diziet-sma, mankind, marterialist-apotheosis, multifariously-faceted, realpolitik, the-berlin-wall, the-west