East End Chronicles

by Ed Gilnert

The East Roman burial ground, medieval rubbsih tip, Victorian hell hole, WW2 bombing aarget, 21st century gentrification template. Always a rum place, the industrial revolution replaced rose bushes and hedgerows with metallic roads and iron railways, mud banks gve way to deeo-water docks and sweatshops. East End Chronicles tells the story of this part of London tht has always enthralled writers and readers through the bizarre, the unusual, the arcane and the mysterious. Chapters on the Silk Weavers of Spitalfields; Docks, Dockers and River Pirates; Murder and Mayhem on the Radcliffe Highway; Myths and MytHmakers; The Blitz and Bombs; The Jewish Ghetto and more reveal the real underbelly of the history of the East End.

Genres: London, History, Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2005

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a popular history that is definitely sensationalising the history of the East End. It’s not presented in a chronological fashion, but each chapter looks at a specific area of the past, with a lot of emphasis on murder and crime. I noticed quite a few historical inaccuracies in the introduction alone. For all intents and purposes I should have hated it for being so popular and inaccurate but I found I was enjoying it anyway. I think I was reading it more as “folklore” than history. I think if you take the stories in it as stories rather than history it is quite an interesting portrayal of the seedier aspects of East End. One of the most entertaining parts of the book was talking about Jewish Anarchists in the late 19th early 20th centuries. There was talk about how the normal Jews had hired a bunch of Jewish gangsters to disrupt the anarchists, who then hired the same gangsters to annoy the well meaning community, which saw them pelting them with bacon sandwiches as they were coming out of synagogue. Not very nice but I must admit it did make me giggle. There was actually quite a bit of coverage of the Jewish community in this book, and particularly about the anti-semitism feelings that were around in the 20th century. I must admit that I had no idea that there were such fascists in England in the 30s and such prejudice against the Jews here. This is definitely an interesting and enjoyable book though I would recommend it with caution.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, this *would* have been a 5-star review -- as an overview of the history of London's East End, it's generally fascinating and encyclopedic. I was thrown off, though, when Glinert started talking about the various revolutionary movements that got their start (at least partly) in & around the East End.

Where most of his snide remarks are cheeky/sarcastic, he gets downright venomous when he gets to the founders of Communism who spent time in the city, and he's disturbingly ambivalent about the fascists who came up in the same area both before and after. Not that I'm a fan of Stalin or Lenin myself, but it seems odd that more left-wing figures (including Britain's Labour party) get hammered far more than the right-wing. It's an unfortunate crack in Glinert's otherwise non-partisan armor.

That said, I wish I'd read the book before tromping around the East End on our most recent trip -- it would've been fairly cool to be able to match the words with the places our feet took us.

[Jon Kissack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading this. It did tend to jump about a bit and some of the historical timelines are a little inaccurate however, definitely worth a read.

[Thamrong]

The strange 300 years history of East London from the formation of East India Company. Place where I spent 4 bloody years of my schooling.