"When a man is tired of London," Samuel Johnson noted in 1777, "he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Indeed, for almost two thousand years, London has been the political, cultural, and economic heart of Britain, and one of the great hubs of world affairs. Now, in this fascinating volume, the doyen of London historians, Francis Sheppard, provides the definitive account of London's diverse past, from its origins as a Roman settlement (founded at the lowest bridgeable point across the Thames) to the world-class metropolis it is today. It providesa vivid account of a city which was the `deere sweete' place which Chaucer loved more than any other city on earth, which was for Dickens his `magic lantern', and to Keats `a great sea', howling for more wrecks. It is also a story of much contrast and remarkable resilience; through great fires andpestilence, civil war, and the Blitz, London has rebuilt and reinvented itself for each generation. "Sheppard is the great authority to whom we all look up," Roy Porter has written. "He has made the history of London his life's work, and I suspect there's no one in the world with so full a knowledge and so rich a grasp as he of sources, physical fabric, and all manner of details." In thiscolorful new history, Sheppard takes us on a fascinating voyage through London's past. It is the definitive account of the rise to power of one of the world's great metropolitan centers.
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conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say that there is more learning and science within the circumference often miles from where we now sit than in all the rest of the kingdom. - Page xvii
led him; Earth enrich'd him, heaven carest him, Taunton blest him, London blest him. This thankful town, that mindful city, Share his piety and his pity. What he gave, and how he gave it, Ask the poor, and you shall have it. - Page 1
Among the noble cities of the world that are celebrated by Fame, the City of London, seat of the Monarchy of England, is one that spreads its fame wider, sends its wealth further, and lifts its head higher than all - Page xvii
populous places at a distance from one another, and the inhabitants of any one of them know- nothing, or next to nothing, of the proceedings in any other, and not much indeed of those of their own. - Page 296
takes a lot of understanding. It's a great place. Immense. The richest town in the world, the biggest port, the greatest manufacturing town, the Imperial city—the centre of civilisation, the heart of the world. - Page xvii
it is no exaggeration to say that, but for the hostility of the City, Charles the First would never have been - Page 161
will be one vast raving bedlam, the hospitals will be stormed, traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help, the city will be a pandemonium'. - Page 334
and squalid cottages, no longer exist. There are wide gradations of income, but it is the same kind of life that is being lived at different - Page 333
are scene very poore. . heaped up together, and in a sort smothered with many families of children and servantes in - Page 174
plenteous, and very easie to be had at low and small rents, and by reason of the late dissolution of Religious houses many houses in London stood vacant, and not any man desirous to take them'. - Page 174
Cover:
+ By Francis Sheppard
+ Published 2000 Oxford University Press
+ 496 pages
+ ISBN 0192853694
Why did slums and suburbs develop simultaneously? Were class antagonisms to blame? Why did the Victorians believe there was a housing problem? The history of housing between 1780 and 1914 encapsulates many problems associated with the transition from a largely rural to an overwhelmingly urban nation, whose unprecedented pace imposed immense tensions within society. This book reviews the recent arguments and guides the student of social history to further reading, making it an ideal introduction to a central issue in nineteenth-century history.
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Steel frame architecture versus the London Building Regulations: Selfridges, the Ritz and American technology', Construction History, 6, 1990, 23-46, - Page 88
all the space within the external and party walls of a building'. - Page 94
The land question: a Liberal theory of communal property', History Workshop Journal, 27, 1989, 106-35 - Page 91
of their possibilities and most adept at turning them into shapes on the ground'. - Page 42
were the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes (1841) - Page 45
the rate of mortality depends upon the efficiency of the ventilation (and - Page 32
in his Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (1842), - Page 2
feuing, which increased land costs and ground burdens, a method of building finance for small builders based on the technicalities of feuing which intensified building industry instability, and average real wages approximately 20-30 per cent below comparable English trades in the 1850s - Page 36
by A. Mayne, The Imagined Slum: Newspaper Representation in Three Cities 1870-1914 (Leicester 1993), - Page 88
such as Christian teaching regarding family life and sobriety, the sanctity of property rights, prevailing laissez-faire orthodoxy in economic and social affairs, and ratepayers' insistence on economism in government. - Page 44
Cover:
+ By Richard Rodger
+ Contributor Maurice Kirby
+ Published 1995 Cambridge University Press
+ 113 pages
+ ISBN 0521557860
Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning
0 comments Posted by Urban Planning Theory at 2:58 PMThis volume is a critical history of planning in theory and practice in the 20th century, as well as of the social and economic problems and opportunities that gave rise to it. It reviews the development of the modern planning movement over the entire span of the 20th century.
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but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations - Page 378
For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword - Page 1
Forget six counties overhung with smoke, Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, Forget the spreading of the hideous town; Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, And dream of London, small and white and clean, The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green. William Morris The - Page 87
will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Daniel - Page 188
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once - Page 188
does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?" He replied: "All Poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing." William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - Page 1
deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world. John Winthrop A Model of Christian Charity (1630) - Page 1
In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is so out of line with the rest of American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well. - Page 451
made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into - Page 142
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist": - Page 2
Cover:
+ By Peter Hall
+ Published 2002
+ Blackwell Publishing
+ ISBN 0631232524