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Second City: Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain
A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022'A spirited attempt at uncovering the mystery of how Birmingham has managed for so long to stand at the centre of Britain's history without anyone noticing ... This absorbing book shows us how we did it' Observer'Vinen has written a history of Birmingham, but it is also a theory of Birmingham. And also, perhaps, a theory of England. I buy it' Daily TelegraphFor over a century, Birmingham has been the second largest town in England, and central to modern history. In his richly enjoyable new book Richard Vinen captures the drama of a small village that grew to become the quintessential city of the twentieth a place of mass production, full employment and prosperity that began in the 1930s, but which came to a cataclysmic halt in the 1980s. For most of that time, Birmingham has also been a magnet for migration, drawing in people from Wales, Ireland, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Indeed, much of British history - the passage of the first reform bill, the rise and fall of the Chamberlain dynasty, racial tension - can be explained, in large measure, with reference to Birmingham.Vinen roots his sweeping story in the experience of individuals. This is a book about figures everyone has heard of, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Duran Duran. It is also about those that everyone ought to have heard of - such as Dick Etheridge, the all-powerful Communist convenor at the Longbridge factory, or Stan Crooke, one of the remarkable West Indians interviewed for the 1960s documentary The Colony. It captures the ways in which hundreds of thousands of people - from the Welsh miners who poured into the car factories in the 1930s to the young women who danced to reggae in the basement of Rebecca's nightclub in the 1980s - were caught up in the convulsions of social change.Birmingham is not a pretty place, and its history does not always make for comfortable reading. But modern Britain does not make sense without it.'There is unlikely to be a fuller or more informative history of Birmingham than Vinen's' Jonathan Coe, Financial Times
592 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2022
15 people are currently reading
180 people want to read
About the author
Richard Vinen
15 books10 followersRichard Vinen is a Professor in Modern European History at King's College, London. Prior to joining the department in 1991, he was a Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge and also lectured at Queen Mary (Westfield) College.
Richard Vinen is the author of the widely praised "A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century". He writes regularly for The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement, the Boston Globe and the Nation.
Richard Vinen is the author of the widely praised "A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century". He writes regularly for The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement, the Boston Globe and the Nation.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 28, 2023
A thorough and fascinating account of the rise of Birmingham - a little dry in places and very patchy when dealing with popular culture. Kinda to be expected from an ivory towered academic though.
UB40 being referred to as a white reggae band was repeated twice and is a ridiculous mistake to make. Rather sneering references to Black Sabbath, Baltis and Peaky Blinders seem unnecessary. Feck only knows what the good professor would have made of Napalm Death and the whole grindcore movement that was centred in Birmingham throughout the 90s.
UB40 being referred to as a white reggae band was repeated twice and is a ridiculous mistake to make. Rather sneering references to Black Sabbath, Baltis and Peaky Blinders seem unnecessary. Feck only knows what the good professor would have made of Napalm Death and the whole grindcore movement that was centred in Birmingham throughout the 90s.
February 28, 2023
A serious work, more about the people of Birmingham than its physical and economic history, and worth reading if you're interested. Much of it is about Joseph Chamberlain and his legacy (not least his sons) and others who became famous after abandoning the city, and changes wrought by pre- and post-war immigration.
Vinen is unimpressed by modern attempts to create an aura of largely-fake tradition (e.g. the “Chinese” quarter) culture (an upstart symphony orchestra whose star conductor – Simon Rattle - defected to Berlin, theatre that could never rival the nearby Royal Shakespeare Company) and academia (the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies that took little notice of its environment, even when the city had as many as 300 rock bands). As for Peaky Blinders, the BBC series, it's “derivative, ludicrously implausible and badly written”.
He is also scathing about the police. In an appendix he sets out in forensic(!) detail the case and circumstances of the “Birmingham Six”, convicted as IRA members of the pub bombings in 1974 which killed 21 and injured many more. More recent Islamist activity is not even mentioned, even though "Britain’s second city is home to 8.7% of the country’s Muslims, but 14.5% of those convicted of Islamist terrorism" (according to The Economist). And, to quote an academic paper from Birmingham Uni: "A pervasive culture of risk and social insecurity have (sic) shaped Western socio-political Islamophobic and discriminating attitudes that cast shadow on Muslims and further their resentment, thus playing into the hands of radical and violent propaganda."
Perhaps addressing this topic would have been a risk too far for the author.
Vinen is unimpressed by modern attempts to create an aura of largely-fake tradition (e.g. the “Chinese” quarter) culture (an upstart symphony orchestra whose star conductor – Simon Rattle - defected to Berlin, theatre that could never rival the nearby Royal Shakespeare Company) and academia (the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies that took little notice of its environment, even when the city had as many as 300 rock bands). As for Peaky Blinders, the BBC series, it's “derivative, ludicrously implausible and badly written”.
He is also scathing about the police. In an appendix he sets out in forensic(!) detail the case and circumstances of the “Birmingham Six”, convicted as IRA members of the pub bombings in 1974 which killed 21 and injured many more. More recent Islamist activity is not even mentioned, even though "Britain’s second city is home to 8.7% of the country’s Muslims, but 14.5% of those convicted of Islamist terrorism" (according to The Economist). And, to quote an academic paper from Birmingham Uni: "A pervasive culture of risk and social insecurity have (sic) shaped Western socio-political Islamophobic and discriminating attitudes that cast shadow on Muslims and further their resentment, thus playing into the hands of radical and violent propaganda."
Perhaps addressing this topic would have been a risk too far for the author.
April 9, 2023
Richard Vinen has written a lively and readable history of the city of Birmingham: my birthplace.
The influence of the Chamberlain’s, the Cadbury’s and other dynastic families had on the city is well documented as is the impact of Bolton, Watt and Murdoch and other members of the Lunar Society before them. So too the impact of the ‘shadow factories’ in the interwar years on Car City!
The best part of the book however about the people of Birmingham. As a boy growing up in Birmingham in the 60s and 70s the narrative and the recollection were perfectly aligned. The West Indian and South Asian cultures colliding with Irish and English.
The sense of many colours and an exotic exuberance absent from most people’s lives in Britain then. I recall Milan’s sari shop - to become one of many in Sparkhill along Stratford Road - was like a place from another world. I remember my father taking me to a record store too at nearby Sparkbrook playing all the latest reggae music. Another world! I remember too how the Irish were treated - especially after the IRA Pub Bombings in 1974 - my mother cried for my safely when I final went to Ireland almost a decade later.
As a schoolboy I didn’t know that W H Auden had lived in Solihull - promotion of homosexuals was not tolerated in Thatcher’s Britain - I also didn’t know until much later how privileged I was to grow up in a place of such diversity.
Birmingham was - and is - a place of migration. The city is constantly reinventing itself. The choice of ‘Forward’ for the city’s motto in 1838 seems to have been done so with foresight.
Recommended to my Birmingham friends!
The influence of the Chamberlain’s, the Cadbury’s and other dynastic families had on the city is well documented as is the impact of Bolton, Watt and Murdoch and other members of the Lunar Society before them. So too the impact of the ‘shadow factories’ in the interwar years on Car City!
The best part of the book however about the people of Birmingham. As a boy growing up in Birmingham in the 60s and 70s the narrative and the recollection were perfectly aligned. The West Indian and South Asian cultures colliding with Irish and English.
The sense of many colours and an exotic exuberance absent from most people’s lives in Britain then. I recall Milan’s sari shop - to become one of many in Sparkhill along Stratford Road - was like a place from another world. I remember my father taking me to a record store too at nearby Sparkbrook playing all the latest reggae music. Another world! I remember too how the Irish were treated - especially after the IRA Pub Bombings in 1974 - my mother cried for my safely when I final went to Ireland almost a decade later.
As a schoolboy I didn’t know that W H Auden had lived in Solihull - promotion of homosexuals was not tolerated in Thatcher’s Britain - I also didn’t know until much later how privileged I was to grow up in a place of such diversity.
Birmingham was - and is - a place of migration. The city is constantly reinventing itself. The choice of ‘Forward’ for the city’s motto in 1838 seems to have been done so with foresight.
Recommended to my Birmingham friends!
June 28, 2024
My local big city.
Very well written, very readable. Super interesting, lots of detail.
Writer's personal connection to/view of the city give it an extra boost.
Opening paragraph perfectly describes the English history most of us were taught back in the day. Thankfully, historians like Richard Vinen are correcting this:
"When I was growing up in Birmingham in the 1960s and 70s, history was something that happened somewhere else. On school trips we would pile into coaches to visit the castles at Warwick and Kenilworth but I never knew that the remains of a real castle could still be seen in the middle of the Weoley Castle council estate , a short walk from my house. Birmingham did not feature in the kind of history that I learned from Ladybird books. It had no obvious links with monarchy or aristocracy. Since my youth was haunted by images of the Second World War, I was also struck by Birmingham's absence from military history."
I was born and brought up in Liverpool and had exactly the same experience.
Needless to say, this book puts the lie to the inadequate version of history taught in this country for many generations.
Interrupting myself because with everything going on in the world I need to read some comedy or light fiction.
Very well written, very readable. Super interesting, lots of detail.
Writer's personal connection to/view of the city give it an extra boost.
Opening paragraph perfectly describes the English history most of us were taught back in the day. Thankfully, historians like Richard Vinen are correcting this:
"When I was growing up in Birmingham in the 1960s and 70s, history was something that happened somewhere else. On school trips we would pile into coaches to visit the castles at Warwick and Kenilworth but I never knew that the remains of a real castle could still be seen in the middle of the Weoley Castle council estate , a short walk from my house. Birmingham did not feature in the kind of history that I learned from Ladybird books. It had no obvious links with monarchy or aristocracy. Since my youth was haunted by images of the Second World War, I was also struck by Birmingham's absence from military history."
I was born and brought up in Liverpool and had exactly the same experience.
Needless to say, this book puts the lie to the inadequate version of history taught in this country for many generations.
Interrupting myself because with everything going on in the world I need to read some comedy or light fiction.
December 24, 2023
I really enjoyed this book and felt like I had a complete picture of Birmingham by the end. It confirmed things I felt or thought I knew and provided a few new perspectives and bits of trivia. It wasn’t always a thrilling narrative but that perhaps would have made it an entirely different book so maybe harsh in only giving four stars.
April 29, 2024
Interesting history of Birmingham with a strong focus on the twentieth century, although also dealing with the nineteenth in detail and making some connections to earlier periods. I think it's especially useful in putting social, economic, political, and physical changes together, e.g.connecting attitudes to modernity to car ownership, car manufacturing, and house building.
December 10, 2022
A fascinating journey of history and feeling for Britain’s second city
A look at history and character of a city and its people. A mixture of fact and feeling that was very evocative for a former resident, myself, who lived through much of the post War decades.
A look at history and character of a city and its people. A mixture of fact and feeling that was very evocative for a former resident, myself, who lived through much of the post War decades.
June 29, 2025
A very compelling, wide ranging history of the city which has been adopted by my son, and where my grandchildren were born. Lucid writing, excellent research. Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews