Resilience and the City is an impressive look at the idea of resilience, the concept's growing relevance to the fields of urban history and urban planning and its practical implications for the historical and modern city. Peter Rogers’ book is theoretically rigorous, engaging primarily with the work of Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault to equip the reader with the theoretical ‘toolbox’ needed for an understanding of resilience and the critique presented of the development of cities. Additionally, Resilience and the City has an empirical basis, utilizing reference points from Ancient Greece to contemporary New Orleans, London and Belfast to illustrate his points. It is however not without its problems.

The book is split into two sections. Part One, containing Chapters 1–4, is the more theoretical section, outlining the concepts to be applied (Chapter 2), and discussing what the author refers to as ‘the genealogy of the past’: the evolution of these concepts over time (Chapter 3). Rogers highlights in more depth in this chapter what is to be the subject of study. It is not, as such, a discussion of the city and parts thereof as ‘space’ in itself, but rather how power relations and their outworking affect how the space is thought of, and crucially how it is used. The final chapter in Part One casts the net somewhat wider than the initial remit of the city to speak of ‘the historical urban’ (p. 43), highlighting the conditions, institutions and organizations that interact to create social order. In Part One, the idea of resilience, both in negative and positive manifestations, is alluded to but not elucidated much more than the brief definition of resilience generally that has previously been given in the Introduction.

Part Two of the book is the more empirical section. It opens with a chapter that narrows the application of the theory outlined previously to the ‘democratic, post-industrial and global city’ (p. 91). Here, the author highlights the emergence of the ‘entrepreneurial urban order’ (p. 113), and the prioritization of economic growth in the contemporary era over social order. Rogers states that this reordering of the city, whereby social order is of concern primarily to ensure economic growth, is problematic and can result in the further marginalization of poor and minority communities. Rogers continues in Chapter 6, highlighting the struggle for security and its effect on ordering of the city. It is in this chapter that Rogers makes some of his most engaging points. He articulates the major challenges to security in the form of ‘hazards’ (p. 116), the challenges that derive from natural processes of events, ‘risks’ (p. 116), man-made challenges through civil unrest or economic crises and ‘threats’ (p. 116), those challenges to security made by a formal coalition such as terrorism and war. This is followed by an examination of the effects of the challenges, and attempts to manage them on the development of the city. Chapter 7 embarks on a much more detailed discussion of what resilience means in general, and for organizations and communities. This chapter contains the bulk of Rogers’ argument as he proceeds to describe how struggles against the challenges faced by the city, as he previously set out, can result in resilience with both positive and negative consequences. The conclusion of this book attempts to tie the chapters together neatly, underlining the importance of discussion of resilience both presently and for the future study of urban space.

Resilience and the City is an ambitious work and is undoubtedly a study of much value to scholars in a variety of fields. However, the historical element of the book, as Rogers recognizes himself, is far from a holistic account of the factors affecting the development of cities over time. It is true, as Rogers states (p. 167), that the ‘shift towards modernity’ has been covered well elsewhere, but perhaps not through the theoretical lens that he adopts here. In addition, the structure of the book is somewhat problematic. Whilst the chapters are congruent and sit together well, the concept of resilience is not fully articulated until the penultimate chapter. Rogers states that he unpacks this idea towards the end of his book (p. 167), after much of the theoretical and historical detail, as it is of principal concern to the contemporary city. Developing the central theme earlier in the piece might allow the reader to have a greater sense of the direction of the book from the outset. In addition, whilst the idea of resilience is eventually expounded in the penultimate chapter, examples of its interplay with the contemporary city could have been expanded upon in greater detail. Rogers dedicates only two pages to discussion of challenges to the security of the city in the twenty-first century before moving to his conclusion. Nevertheless, Resilience and the City is underpinned by a wealth of rigorous research, which is evident throughout, and scholars of urban history and urban planning would do well to heed Rogers’ call to address the yet unanswered questions he raises in his final chapter.