Who the Hell is Jane Jacobs?

For students, teachers and curious minds, our carefully structured jargon-free series helps you really get to grips with brilliant intellectuals and their inherently complex theories. Written in an accessible and engaging way, each book takes you through the life and influences of these great thinkers, then takes a deep dive into three of their key theories in plain English. Smart thinking made easy!

Jane Jacobs was an urbanist, activist and pioneer and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. Yet she remains hugely underrated, possibly because she was a woman writing in a male-dominated field. The aim of this book is to bring Jacobs' highly original ideas and perceptive insights to light, looking first at who she was as a person, where and how she lived, and how her ferocious intellect led her to unchartered frontiers of thought. Presenting her writings in three core chapters, Who the Hell is Jane Jacobs? looks at not only how Jacobs' ideas about cities and the economy evolved, but how these ideas play out in contemporary society. Jacobs shows us how society is about people, not money or power.