Note 96 — III. THE CITIES OF MESOPOTAMIA

The same applies to the “urban revolution”—a phrase often used to describe the birth of civilization. This term has been introduced by V. Gordon Childe, whose great achievement has been the replacement of period-distinctions, which had only typological significance, by others which suggest socio-economic differences. However, in the later editions of his Dawn of European Civilization, in Man Makes Himself, and in What Happened in History, his point of view has assumed a Marxist slant which applies to ancient Near Eastern conditions inappropriate categories. His recent article, “The Urban Revolution,” in The Town Planning Review, XXI (Liverpool, 1950), 3-17, and his recent L. T. Hobhouse Memorial Lecture, “Social Worlds of Knowledge” (London, 1949), seem to embody, however, a change of viewpoint. As regards the term “urban revolution,” it can in no way be applied to Egypt, as we shall see, even if we should accept it, with the qualifications stated in our text, for the transition from prehistory to history in Mesopotamia.