The making of modern London - Gavin Weightman

On their original publication, the four volumes ofThe Making of Modern Londonwere hailed as innovative and riveting histories of the city, combining living memory with diligent historical resarch. Accompanying a popular television series of the same name,The Making of Modern Londonwas a ground-breaking publication and drew upon the extensive knowledge and expertise of leading academics of the day.

Now skilfully woven into one volume, this new publication picks up the story in 1815, when London was the gas-lit, horse-drawn city of Charles Dickens' day. In the two centuries that followed London has become one of the greatest cities in the world, with a history that is endlessly fascinating and enduring, especially when it is related in the words of the people who lived and breathed the city - from the lightermen on the 19th-century River Thames and the debutantes who jitterbugged their way around the dancefloors of the 1930s, to the East Enders whose poignant memories of the air raids and bombings of the Second World War stir our emotions even today. And this is one of the few histories of the capital that records the excitement of the Coronation in 1953, the 'Swinging London' of the 1960s and the revolution in dress and habits from the 1970s onwards. Written with verve, sympathy and elan, this is the intimate story of London as never told before.