Beyond the Tower: A History of East London

by John Marriott

From Jewish clothing merchants to Bangladeshi curry houses, ancient docks to the 2012 Olympics, the area east of the City has always played a crucial role in London's history. The East End, as it has been known, was the home to Shakespeare's first theater and to the early stirrings of a mass labor movement; it has also traditionally been seen as a place of darkness and despair, where Jack the Ripper committed his gruesome murders, and cholera and poverty stalked the Victorian streets. In this beautifully illustrated history of this iconic district, John Marriott draws on twenty-five years of research into the subject to present an authoritative and endlessly fascinating account. With the aid of copious maps, archive prints and photographs, and the words of East Londoners from seventeenth-century silk weavers to Cockneys during the Blitz, he explores the relationship between the East End and the rest of London, and challenges many of the myths that surround the area.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, London, British Literature

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2011

Reviews

[Daniel Greear · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of potential. I picked it up in London last year and was mesmerized by the title and cover. Overall, I was pretty disappointed. The past one hundred pages or so really picked up, as it discussed the Blitz and the modern demographic changes, but other than that I found the book to be drab. I got lost in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. I feel like the author spent too much time trying to use first party sources and this book read more like an essay than a book.

[Chi Pham · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a person like me, who is not entirely familiar with the scenes of London or the nuances of British history, this wealth of information actually enriches my reading experience. The author presents very detailed accounts of the changes over time in East End of London, guiding us through the legacy of Industrial Revolution, religious tolerance, immigration, modernism and imperialism by telling the story of what happened in this intriguingly small piece of land (compared to the entire British Empire). If I know more about British history, maybe I would be able to evaluate the book for its historicity and its genre. For now, I would say that I quite like the book, will probably refer to it later when I need information.

The only drawback is that the book seems a little bit incoherent. Obviously, trying to tell the history of an entire area is difficult. The stories are actually fragments of what happened, so while they are fascinating on the their own, putting them together in a book makes it difficult to figure out the prominent themes.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable. For anyone interested in this area of London a very good overall view of its history. I liked it especially as the great majority of the accounts are connected to social history, which I did not get much information about at school. This book also showed a rather disappointing outlook on life: all that changes is the same as the French saying goes ( plus ca change c'est la même chose) The causes of the current recession are nothing new; time and time again - also in East London - greed by the few and non-regard for the people result in unfortunate circumstances for the many. Worth reading though!

[Barry H. Wiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as part of my research background for my historical novel in-progress, Jack and the Thought Reader, where Jack is, of course, the Ripper. The East End of London was a planet apart from the moneyed West Side, with the regular influx of new immigrants searching for a better life, only to move on with the next wave closely following. The stories from Whitechapel, Lime House, Spitalfields, and other notorious locations th at appear in novels over the last 150 years or so take on a more realistic picture as a result of digging into the actual history. A good read for anyone looking to understand the impact of new waves of immigrants on the cultures of their new homeland.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a loving history of the colourful and diverse East End. It served as a great history, but was also an impassioned plea for the retaining of this historic area's character. If historians wrote books like love songs, this would be an example.