BOOK REVIEW 57 One of the most debatable concepts that concerns the student of urbanisation is the definition of the city. There is an already accepted notion that the city is an object that needs to be looked at as a whole. Although as a mature form, the city has existed for thousands of years, its megapolis scale is a modern, post industrial phenomenon. Gone are the days when etching artists could sit on a hillock outside the city gate and capture a whole view of a city. Today it takes satellite imageny to view the parameters of a city. As a megapolis, the very basis of the city has altered since its inhabitants no longer have any control over its fate. This control has passed on to the bureaucrat whose policies (or lack of them) now guide the destiny of the inhabitants. If we regard the city-any city-as a functional object, we must consider it^ dual aspect. Firstly the city is a machine for survival and secondly it is an artefact which should enrich the quality of life of its inhabitants. As a machine for survival (and I use the metaphor to evoke something turning with many cogs) it attracts migration, it is controlled by economic interests and used by the powerful. As an artefact, it enables its inhabitants to enter within it, and choose a better quality of life than exists outside its boundaries. Policies are intended to control both these aspects of the city except that eventually, urban policies are essentially the weapons of control of the rich and powerful. This is brought out very well in the section of the book that deals with the challenges that the French faced after the Second World War. Thus 'expropriation* (or acquisition as we call it) is dealt with. The expropriating authority thus assumes the role of an intermediary who mobilises land and redistributes it (or buys it by mutual consent, under the lot of expropriation) to private or non-private users. The new owners, in turn, use thejand profitably in keeping with the general objectives. Echoes of Nariman Point, Bhikaji Cama Place etc. Before reaching the end of this review, it would ofcourse be necessary to say the unkind things too. The most glaring misfortune of the book is that Mulk Raj has been identified as a co-editor as well as the author of the Foreword. Mercifully his name appears after that of Jean-Pierre Gaudin because the real howlers are in the Foreword. Sentences and an entire paragraph have been lifted out of the main text and rubbed into the Foreword text. It really makes the Foreword quite redundant and makes one wonder what contribution has been made by the Indian editor. Since the entire text of the book consists of an introduction by the French editof and a whole collection of articles culled and translated from various French Journals it is difficult to imagine about Mr. Mulk Raj's contribution. Although these Journals have been referred to, their publication dates of the original articles are ominously missing leading one to believe that some of them may not be that recent. One date reference reveals 1958 and 1970. Given the fact