City of Cities: The Birth of Modern London

by Stephen Inwood

By 1880, London, capital of the largest empire ever known, was the richest, most populous city in the world; and yet it remained an overcrowded, ungoverned metropolis with huge slums gripped by poverty and disease. Over the next three decades, London began its transformation into a new kind of city—one of unprecedented size, dynamism, and technological advance. This highly evocative account delves into the lives and textures of the booming city, from the glittering 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. It shows how the city, as a result of massive urban migration and construction, took on its shape; and how the advent of novelties such as electricity, the motor car, the telephone, socialism, democracy, and female emancipation transformed the lives of city dwellers. Brought to life is an age when Londoners spoke with excitement of the New Journalism, the New Woman, the New Aristocracy, and the New Liberalism, and when the nation hurled itself into war, realizing the cataclysmic consequences of this rush to modernity.

Genres: History, London, Nonfiction, British Literature

538 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2005

About the author

Dr Stephen Inwood was educated at Dulwich College and at Balliol and St Antony's College, Oxford. For twenty-six years he was a college and university history lecturer, but he became a professional writer in 1999.

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really tried to finish it but it dragged. I think he just went into much more detail about each topic than I was interested in. Maybe someone more specialized would like it more.

[Angela Incigneri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel exhausted to have made it through this enormous book packed full of facts. I don't know how to describe this enormous undertaking except to congratulate Stephen Inwood. I now have a much better idea of life in London between 1880 and the start of WWI.