The organizations and architecture of which cities consist are interpreted as systems which suck up, use and then redistribute energy, while in the meantime spitting out products, people, and waste. The cultural, political and religious institutions are portrayed as separate from the intentions, desires and meanings which have traditionally been associated with them. They come into existence much in the same way as quartz comes into existence in a mountain. In the second essay, the biological plays a central role, as the focus is on the flow of genetic material, of genes. Not only human genes, but also those of animals, plants, bacteria and viruses.
Cities now appear as organisms which feed off of their environment.
De Landa shows how the coexistence of people and animals generates problems and solutions. The final section considers the last thousand years through a socio-linguistic lens. Here as well, the focus is on non-uniform streams which intersect, intermingle and feed one another in very different ways. De Landa manages, if even in an only sketchy way, to make clear how much of a difference it makes if we look at human history without value judgments in terms of more or less developed, more or less ethical, more or less just. His book is a brave and enthusiastic attempt, based on the intellectual legacy of Deleuze and Guattari, to formulate a theory of history which sees wind, rocks, oceans, bodies, cities, bacteria, trees and words as expressions of the same mass energy.