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Preface Our world is changing at a rate faster than ever before, and the specter of climate change haunts our present. Now more than ever, our world’s continued survival calls for a deeper understanding of cities and civilizations that once flourished but no longer do. This volume’s 10 Investigative Boxes analyze 10 major cities that face extinction today. These come from every inhabitable continent on earth. Coastal cities everywhere are at risk of a rising sea level, but our future includes much more than just flooding. Changing climates mean more fires and droughts and more obstacles to our food and water supplies. Those who are already in the most vulnerable circumstances will be the hardest hit, but everyone is at risk. Beyond the 10 Investigative Boxes, climate change has been an impetus for this whole project and underlies every aspect of this entire volume. Change is a con- stant in human affairs cities and civilizations are continuously rising and falling. First and foremost, this volume proves again and again that cultural influence, economic strength, and military might are guarantees of security only for those willing to lie to themselves. The book is written for a general audience, for anyone curious about lost cities and civilizations. In addition to the wide spectrum of detailed facts presented in each entry, the reader stands to gain a general appreciation of urban atrophy and the constancy of change. On top of the 10 Investigative Boxes described above, 25 sidebars outline mythical cities created by the human imagination. The pulp of the volume is the 86 main entries on lost cities and civilizations. The entries, which appear alphabetically, all include the following subsections: Inhabitants, Historical Background, Culture and Society, Demise, Recent Discov- eries, Current Status, and Further Reading. The entries—as well as the investiga- tive boxes and sidebars—come from every region of the globe that has been home to humans. The time span is likewise broad, spanning all of human civilization, from several millennia BCE to the present. The authors and contributors have backgrounds in the fields of anthropology and history. We have been constructing the entries and other components of the volume from 2019 through 2021 using the leading and latest works on the specific locations and cultures.