London

Autori

• Wison

Parametri

• 166 pagine
• 6 ore di lettura

• Mappe e viaggi
• Saggistica
• Scienze politiche & Politica
• Storia
• Turismo / Viaggi

Maggiori informazioni sul libro

The structure of the book is chronological, with digressions. From Roman and then Norman London, we move on to Chaucer's London - the city of the Peasants Revolt, Dick Whittington and the great Livery Companies. In Tudor and Stuart London many believed the city was being wrecked by over-population, over-building and the greed of speculators. Eighteenth-century London witnessed the South Sea Bubble, gin, highwaymen and the Gordon riots; but also banking, hospitals, and the elegant design of everyday things. In the nineteenth century, expanding vigorously, the city resisted any overall make-over. With Queen Victoria came the Railway Age, which made and unmade the city. Chartism, anti-semitism, overcrowding and cholera. But engineering triumphs too. If the First World War was a nightmare happening elsewhere, the amazing six years of 1939-45 were the city's finest hour. Post-1945, property developers took over, with disastrous results. The author celebrates the cosmopolitan city that mobility and immigration have created, while deploring the `moronization' of the city, exemplified by the Millennium Dome and Ken Livingstone's 2002 London Plan.

Lingua: Inglese

Pubblicato: 2004

(Copertina rigida)