London: the Biography of a City

London: the Biography of a City PDF Author: Christopher Hibbert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description

London: the Biography of a City

London: the Biography of a City PDF Author: Christopher Hibbert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description


London

London PDF Author: Peter Ackroyd
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 872

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Book Description
In this entertaining and informative volume, a renowned biographer and critic takes on his grandest subject: London--one of the world's most vast and vital cities. in color. 2 maps.

City of London

City of London PDF Author: David Kynaston
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099554828
Category : City of London (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 730

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Book Description
The 'Square Mile', London's financial powerhouse, rose to prominence with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. David Kynaston's vibrant history brings this world to life, taking us from the railway boom of the 1830s to the 'Golden Age', when the legendary gold standard reigned supreme. Between the two World Wars the City was affected by the Wall Street Crash, pressured by politicians, trade unions and industrialists, but by the end of the twentieth century it had regained a precarious global might. Woven throughout are the stories of four individuals who shaped the City in different ways -- Nathan Rothschild, Ernest Cassel, Montagu Norman and Siegmund Warburg. But the realm of great bankers and brokers is also the workplace of young clerks throwing paper darts, typists bringing in their sandwiches, and sad racketeers watching aghast as the markets fall. Above all, we see what it was like to work in the City -- the dress codes, eating habits, work hours, pay, humour, changing architecture and language that forged the unique culture of the Square Mile. Richly entertaining, full of vivid anecdotes, this is a story of booms, busts and bankruptcies -- from the Kaffir boom to the Marconi scandal, the 'Big Bang' deregulation of 1986, and the Barings crash in 1995 -- bringing us to the brink of the modern age.

London Under

London Under PDF Author: Peter Ackroyd
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385531516
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
In this vividly descriptive short study, Peter Ackroyd tunnels down through the geological layers of London, meeting the creatures that dwell in darkness and excavating the lore and mythology beneath the surface. There is a Bronze Age trackway below the Isle of Dogs, Anglo-Saxon graves rest under St. Pauls, and the monastery of Whitefriars lies beneath Fleet Street. To go under London is to penetrate history, and Ackroyd's book is filled with the stories unique to this underworld: the hydraulic device used to lower bodies into the catacombs in Kensal Green cemetery; the door in the plinth of the statue of Boadicea on Westminster Bridge that leads to a huge tunnel packed with cables for gas, water, and telephone; the sulphurous fumes on the Underground's Metropolitan Line. Highly imaginative and delightfully entertaining, London Under is Ackroyd at his best.

London Fog

London Fog PDF Author: Christine L. Corton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674088352
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Telegraph Editor’s Choice An Evening Standard “Best Books about London” Selection In popular imagination, London is a city of fog. The classic London fogs, the thick yellow “pea-soupers,” were born in the industrial age of the early nineteenth century. Christine L. Corton tells the story of these epic London fogs, their dangers and beauty, and their lasting effects on our culture and imagination. “Engrossing and magnificently researched...Corton’s book combines meticulous social history with a wealth of eccentric detail. Thus we learn that London’s ubiquitous plane trees were chosen for their shiny, fog-resistant foliage. And since Jack the Ripper actually went out to stalk his victims on fog-free nights, filmmakers had to fake the sort of dank, smoke-wreathed London scenes audiences craved. It’s discoveries like these that make reading London Fog such an unusual, enthralling and enlightening experience.” —Miranda Seymour, New York Times Book Review “Corton, clad in an overcoat, with a linklighter before her, takes us into the gloomier, long 19th century, where she revels in its Gothic grasp. Beautifully illustrated, London Fog delves fascinatingly into that swirling miasma.” —Philip Hoare, New Statesman

Johnson's Life of London

Johnson's Life of London PDF Author: Boris Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101585684
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
The exhilarating story of how London came to be one of the most exciting and influential places on earth—from the city’s colorful, witty, and well-known mayor. Once a swampland that the Romans could hardly be bothered to conquer, over the centuries London became an incomparably vibrant metropolis that has produced a steady stream of ingenious, original, and outsized figures who have shaped the world we know. Boris Johnson, the internationally beloved mayor of London, is the best possible guide to these colorful characters and the history in which they played such lively roles. Erudite and entertaining, he narrates the story of London as a kind of relay race. Beginning with the days when “a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants” created Londinium, he passes the torch on down through the famous and the infamous, the brilliant and the bizarre—from Hadrian to Samuel Johnson to Winston Churchill to the Rolling Stones—illuminating with unforgettable clarity the era each inhabited. He also pauses to shine a light on innovations that have contributed to the city’s incomparable vibrancy, from the King James Bible to the flush toilet. As wildly entertaining as it is informative, this is an irresistible account of the city and people that in large part shaped the world we know.

London

London PDF Author: Christopher Hibbert
Publisher: Viking Press
ISBN: 9780140052473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A social history of London from the Early Middle Ages to the present which also serves as a comprehensive guide to its buildings and treasures

Queer City

Queer City PDF Author: Peter Ackroyd
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683353013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
A history of the development of London as a European epicenter of queer life. In Queer City, the acclaimed Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way–through the complete history and experiences of its gay and lesbian population. In Roman Londinium, the city was dotted with lupanaria (“wolf dens” or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels), and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks, and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure. Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early nineteenth century. He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music, and the horror of AIDS. Ackroyd reveals the hidden story of London, with its diversity, thrills, and energy, as well as its terrors, dangers, and risks, and in doing so, explains the origins of all English-speaking gay culture. Praise for Queer City “Spanning centuries, the book is a fantastically researched project that is obviously close to the author’s heart.... An exciting look at London’s queer history and a tribute to the “various human worlds maintained in [the city’s] diversity despite persecution, condemnation, and affliction.””—Kirkus Reviews “[Ackroyd’s] work is highly anecdotal and near encyclopedic . . . the book is fascinating in its careful exposition of the singularities—and commonalities—of gay life, both male and female. Ultimately it is, as he concludes, a celebration as well as a history,” —Booklist “A witty history-cum-tribute to gay London, from the Roman “wolf dens” through Oscar Wilde and Gay Pride marches to the present day,” —ShelfAwareness

Tales of Two Cities

Tales of Two Cities PDF Author: Jonathan Conlin
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 161902263X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Paris and London have long held a mutual fascination, and never more so than in the period 1750–1914, when they vied to be the world's greatest city. Each city has been the focus of many books, yet Jonathan Conlin here explores the complex relationship between them for the first time. The reach and influence of both cities was such that the story of their rivalry has global implications. By borrowing, imitating and learning from each other Paris and London invented the true metropolis. Tales of Two Cities examines and compares five urban spaces—the pleasure garden, the cemetery, the apartment, the restaurant and the music hall—that defined urban modernity in the nineteenth century. The citizens of Paris and London first created these essential features of the modern cityscape and so defined urban living for all of us.

Layer Cake - the Representation of London in Penelope Lively's City of the Mind and Peter Ackroyd's London

Layer Cake - the Representation of London in Penelope Lively's City of the Mind and Peter Ackroyd's London PDF Author: Ana Colton-Sonnenberg
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638849252
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Paderborn, 19 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: As history is inevitably constructed, fact and fiction lay very closely together. Furthermore, history cannot be but a subjective notion since every person, including historians, has different experiences and interests. Thus, the history of a place or an event is similar to a layer cake: it consists of the memories of all people who are in some way involved. This is the motif of the two works presented in this analysis: City of the Mind and London: A Biography. The layer cake in both Penelope Lively's novel and Peter Ackroyd's historical tract is London. Lively discovers the many strata of the capital by following the main character of her novel, Matthew Halland, around London. Ackroyd's work is as non-fictional as history can get. Similarly to Lively's novel, his structure, however, is not chronological but thematical. On the basis of these two works, a novel and a non-fictional text, this paper pretends to refute the idea of a static history and show in what way Lively's and Ackroyd's London is a 'city of the mind' consisting of layers. To get a better understanding of historiography and its controversies, I will first give a short theoretical overview over the subject. The next step will be to present the authors of the works in order to show their familiarity with history. The subsequent analysis of the representation of London will focus on the idea of London as a layer cake as it manifests itself in both Lively's novel and Ackroyd's book.