As the name implies, Sarai Reader 02: The Cities of Everyday Life is the second in a series of readers edited by the Sarai Group, a collaborative formed by fellows at Delhi’s well-known institute for social and political research, the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, and the media artists and critics at the Society for Old and New Media in the Netherlands and the Raqs Media Collective in Delhi. Sarai Reader 01 explored the contemporary contours of the idea of public domain, particularly in relation to changing forms of knowledge, proprietorship, and notions of publicity. Sarai Reader 02 examines how media institutions and practices bear on urban culture and politics in the contemporary city. The resulting collection of more than fifty short pieces covering a turf of ten thematic sections includes essays, memoirs, images, and e-mails and considers both historical and contemporary case studies. This hypertext format reflects the group’s desire to read the city on different registers as well to examine the city’s involvement with various urban public projects. Though some authors explore European and American case studies, the focus remains on the urban in the so-called third world. Urbanism in the third world, or what has...