PETER KENT’S CITY ACROSS TIME

In minutely detailed cross-sections, Kent traces the history of a generic European settlement from prehistoric times through the 21st century and beyond, to a speculative, pastoral distant future. It’s all about layers; the pits and rubbish of Old Stone Age hunters are covered over with the turn of a page by a cluster of wooden Iron Age houses that are succeeded first by Ancient Roman stone buildings, then successive generations of increasingly modern homes and businesses. Interspersed with occasional side trips to catacombs or an old mine, the town’s expansion into a city leaves the underlying layers jumbled but recognizable—even after ten millennia and humanity’s disappearance return the surface to its original grassland. Linked by a few sentences of general commentary, the cross-sections invite lingering scrutiny; urban readers will certainly come away wondering what treasures and clues to the past might be hidden beneath their own feet. An annotated list of archeology websites extends the experience. (Informational picture book. 9-11)