Another great volume in the Time-Life Great Cities series. The great feature of these volumes is that they are authored by creative writers who have had a long and intimate knowledge and association with their subject matter. This volume is no exception, and describes the inner life and workings of the world's biggest urban conglomeration in an intimate, personal, often profoundly moving, and always perceptive manner, the whole work illuminated by the luminous language. Of course, coming from 1976, that description may not be recognizable today, but even so, it serves as a valuable marker of a stage in the city's development that, perhaps, many others in the developing world will find immediately relevant. ( )