A Brief History of London

by Jeremy Black

As the United Kingdom left the European Union, during a period of international and domestic turmoil, London found itself at a turning point. This critical moment presents an opportunity to look back, with a distinctive perspective, a focus on London in its national and, perhaps even more importantly, its international contexts, rather than on the city itself in isolation.

It is the interactions of London that Black considers, and he does so in order to address the question as to why London became the foremost international city, how it sustained that position, and what its future holds.

The book is as much about economics and culture as it is about politics and society. It deals with migration, communications, empire and cultural energy, rather than the mechanisms of parish vestries. London's earlier period is covered, but the principal focus is on the last half millennium, the period during which London became a major trader with the trans-oceanic world, and the ruler of trans-oceanic colonies, while the English language became an increasingly important cultural medium, one centred on London.

The book includes plentiful literary references, quotations from visitors, and boxes covering discrete topics, such as Jack the Ripper.

Genres: London, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

Published July 7, 2022

About the author

Jeremy Black is an English historian, who was formerly a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
Black is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).

Reviews

[Elif]

It’s not you, it’s me <\3

[Jessica AAAAAAAAAAAAA]

too brief

[Rebecca]

I’m visiting London next month so I hoped to learn more about its history, but this book was quite dull and I struggled to get into it. To be fair it did have to cover a lot of history in a small amount of pages.

[Joey]

This book has some very interesting information, but the way Jeremy Black writes it makes it unnecessary hard to read. The story is incoherent, he can fast forward 50 years and then go back 70 years to fast forward 30 years again.

[Nic]

just casually leaves out their entire role in the slave trade among other things that would paint london in a bad light beyond its violent past.

[Chalyse]

Whilst I found this an interesting overview of the history of London, I found the writing style difficult to read. In trying to cram so much information into the book many pages and sentences felt very muddled. There were a few instances where a statement or point of view was made and then undermined by the end of the sentence, making the sentence feel redundant.

Overall, I still enjoyed the read but wouldn’t recommend if you want to be able to follow a theme or a considered point of view throughout the book.

[Trevor P. Kwain]

A bit boring in writing style and quite skewed in its chronology of the city (should be called "History of London in the last 2 centuries"). It did not excite me at all, and even the way most topics were explained, was quite generic and superficial when there's more to tell or more exiciting ways to explain them. The book is also hardly academic; information is glossed over too much, and if you purge the unnecessary paragraph, very little is left. Book could have been shorter. Not recommended.

[Keith Wallace]

It's very disorganised, but I think it's doomed to be disorganised because it a relatively short book, but it's covering a lot of information, so I don't think it's necessarily poor writing.

It's good to educate you with the what you can read more about from other authors, but not much past that.

[Jean-Christophe Agogué]

In A Brief History of London, Jeremy Black offers a concise and well-structured overview of the city's evolution, from its earliest settlements to its current global role. His clear informative approach constitutes an excellent introduction for readers seeking an authoritative yet concise history of the capital.

[Joe Lovesey]

Nice to learn a little more about a city (or cities, should I say) that is now much closer to home!

I felt that the pacing of this one could have been a little better. I wish certain things were discussed more, whilst others were not discussed enough! I suppose that comes with the territory when picking up a history “overview” such as this.

[Elly Anderson]

This was an absolute snore-fest and nothing felt important :/ I probably retained 2.5 pages of this 300+ page book.

But I love you London. You will forever be my favorite. Plus you look cutie on my bookshelf <3

[Kylie Sprott]

Although I was consistently impressed with the research, I found this hard to read. It was not as structured as I would have liked & felt quite disjointed. However, I did learn a lot - even if it took me a while to finish it!

[Philip Zaunders]

Requires a PhD knowledge of London just to pick up on the million references he makes. This book doesn’t market to those who want an in-depth read but doesn’t write at an entry level either. What is the point of it?

[Robert Baird]

A complete mess of a book, every page is a muddled attempt to squeeze in political, geographical and social history- which makes it at best hard to follow at worst completely incoherent

[Sally Ann]

This book has taken a long time to read and I cannot help think that writing a book on such an interesting city as London couldn't have been tackled differently to make the subect less dry.

[stasi]

Could not get into this book at all — it read just like a textbook, I lost interest in it very quickly.

[The Boho Pages]

Very dull. Waste of money.