City Of Cities by Stephen Inwood
London, the capital of the largest empire in history, was the richest and most populated city in the world by 1880, but it remained an overcrowded, lawless city with vast slums engulfed in destitution and illness. Over the following three decades, London started to change into a new type of city—one of unheard-of size, activity, and technical advancement. From the gleaming new department stores of Oxford Street to the synagogues and sweatshops of the East End, from bohemian bars and flashy music halls to the well-kept lawns of Edwardian suburbia, this vivid history delves into the lives and textures of the booming city.
City Of Cities by Stephen Inwood
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It demonstrates how the city acquired its shape as a result of widespread urban migration and construction, as well as how the introduction of novelties like electricity, the automobile, the telephone, socialism, democracy, and female emancipation affected urban residents’ quality of life. It brings to life a time when Londoners enthusiastically discussed the New Woman, the New Aristocracy, and the New Liberalism, and when the country rushed into war after understanding the catastrophic effects of this drive toward modernity.
London, the largest and most populous city on earth by 1880, served as the capital of the largest empire ever known. It was still overpopulated, poorly administered, and home to vast, unknown slums that were plagued by illness and poverty. This is the story of how, over the course of the following three decades, London evolved into the first really modern city thanks to technological advancement, imaginative dynamism, and sheer riches and size. From the gleaming new department stores of Oxford Street to the synagogues and sweatshops of the East End, from bohemian bars and gaudy music halls to the well-kept gardens of Edwardian suburbia, Steven Inwood takes us on an evocative tour of the burgeoning metropolis by a hansom cab, bicycle, electric tram, or motor bus.
On the way, we discover how the city acquired its present-day layout and how the introduction of such innovations as electricity, the automobile, the telephone, socialism, and female emancipation altered the lives of its citizens. City of Cities, a work of outstanding scholarship, offers a comprehensive, multi-layered record of how modern London came to be.
