United Kingdom Books

Probably the most compelling book I have ever read. Its sheer intellectual scope is a joy to behold. A must for anyone who wishes to understand the complexity of Irish life.

Well researched and entertaining, this is the most readable work yet written on the subject of Ireland's painful progress since the early part of the century. The closing sections of Lee's opus contain some intuitive conclusions about his fellow countrymen, particularly the sections entitled 'Character' and 'Perspectives'. Scholarly guff on the subject of Ireland's breach birth and subsequent delinquency are rarely the stuff of bedtime reading but this is easy on the brain, partly due to Lee's strictly logical approach to his theme and partly because of his enormous skill as a writer. If you want a book on Ireland that doesn't read as though it were written by some OAP in a tweed G-string who hasn't seen sunlight since 1965, this is the one for you. Terrific.

It is sad that the most read Irish historian outside Ireland happens to be the Republican fellow-traveller, Tim Pat Coogan. Then, Coogan seems to aim mostly at the Irish-American market. It is sad because Coogan's bias is not widely recognised, whereas if it was, his books would probably be subjected to more than unthinking acceptance. For me, Joe Lee is by far the greater historian, and this work by him beats anything of Coogans into a cocked hat. Not that they disagree overmuch, Lee is also a Nationalist writer, but his judicious weighing of the evidence and his unblinkered and unwavering devotion to historical truth make him by far the better of the two as a writer and a professional historian. One place where they disagree is on the position of De Valera, whom Coogan has dethroned from his former eminence among 'constitutional' Republicans. Lee supplies a far more sympathetic and truthful analysis of 'the Long Fellow'. Another area where American readers may be surprised is the short shrift given to Sean McBride, later a leading light of Amnesty International and a recognised 'jet-set liberal'. However, McBrides interventions in domestic Irish politics were mostly inept and disastrous for this followers and friends. Also for a believer in religious liberty, he was obsequious to the Catholic church in a most apalling fashion. Therefore, read this book to have your expectations challenged, and old opinions undermined. Possibly, the best Irish historical work to emerge from the 20th century, and a book that will be recognised as such.

I purchased this book several years ago and absolutely LOVED it! A friend borrowed it and now I can't remember which one borrowed it...so I'm purchasing another one for me and one for a dear friend for his Christmas present this year.

this is an absolutely wonderful book all about the 'old' art of Knot Gardening. You'll definitely want to read this book to find out all about the history of this fascinating form of gardening and how to create one in your own space! Great photographic examples fill the pages-a definite "must have" for any gardener!

The knot garden, or parterre, can be eye catching, brashly exuberant, romantically nostalgic, or quietly simple and chic. The appeal of the knot garden in timeless and with space often at a premium, a knot garden provides a tremendously attractive design solution.

Knot Gardens and Parterres is divided into two sections. The first unravels the history of this genre from Tudor times and its "curious knot" - to the famous historic patterns of the 17th Century designs for which certain "Sun Kings" are renowned, and beyond to the flamboyance of Queen Victoria's garden affectations.

The second section confidently takes the reader through the design process, plant selection, and future care and maintenance.

It is an exceptional book on the topic. I refer to it frequently. It has served as the inspiration behind several of my designs.

Un folleto con muchos ideas para compartir y discutir con sus compañeros y compañeras de trabajo y de escuela. Presenta perspectivas que animan a uno estudiar al fondo cuestiones sociales y políticas. Da confianza en nuestra capacidad para entender la historia y organizar para cambiar la socieded.
¿Cual es la relación entre educación y salarios? ¿Porque la educación no se mejora en una sociedad capitalista, aún en una sociedad tan rica como Estados Unidos, a pesar la las muchas pláticas de presidentes y congresistas? ¿Porque hay tantos debates sobre educación pública y escuelas privadas? ¿Cual es la relación entre la crises en educación y el empeoramiento de salarios y condiciones de trabajo?
El autor explica que los ricos necesitan empleados obedientes, no trabajadores con la confianza y capacidad para cuestionar, leer, estudiar y organizar. Toma como ejemplo los ideas de Che Guevara y la revolución cubana, y cita ejemplos de luchas obreras hoy en día. Explica la necesidad de promover la educación como proceso social y con la meta de estudiar y aprender durante toda la vida. "No hay mejor razon para hacer la revolución socialista."

La educación dentro del sistema del dólar todopoderoso no tiene nada que ver con el
aprendizaje ni con la cultura.El sistema de educación existe para regimentar a los jovenes
obreros e inculcar en los jovenes de la clase media y de los superricos de que son
superiores a nosotros los trabajadores. Cuba socialista brinda educación de por vida y una
campaña de televisión llamada ' La Universidad Para Todos.' Tiene esas cosas porque allí
hicieron una revolución. ? Cómo podimos hacer una revolución aqui, en el estomago de la
Bestia Imperial ? ? Cómo podremos cambiarnos nosotros mismos en el proceso ? Estos
son los temas de este folleto excelente.

This pamphlet really opened my eyes. I have been all the way through education to a final degree and teach college. However, this little pamphlet tells more about education, real education, than anything I have read before.

What is called education in this society is fitting you into the slots that this exploitative, oppressive society has for us, not providing us with knowledge, blaming us for our grades and putting some people in 'good' jobs and some people in bad, all to mask a system that exploits us all to benefit the big business rich? I have been to graduate school and have friends with Ph Ds and hung with several Poet Laureates of the US and people saturated with what this society calls education, but I have coworkers at the bus garage smarter than most of them.

This pamphlet explains why this is, and how we can fight for real education. Real education is learning the tools to understand this system, learn to fight, learn to do real things in a real world, real education can come only through mass struggles against this system. Real education can't be separate from work, from life, from struggle.

While Amazon may report this book is unavailable from time to time, it is always available from the Pathfinder Amazon partner z store that you can reach by clicking on new and used at the top of this page/

Au moment où plusieurs de mes amis essaient de payer leurs prêts étudiants gigantesques et que je m'embourbe dans des débats chauds avec mes compagnes de travail pour essayer de les convaincre de cesser de harceler leurs enfants à propos des soi-disant bénéfices de continuer leur éducation, cette petite brochure tombe à point. Écrite de toute évidence par quelqu'un qui aime lire et penser, et qui sait ce que c'est se faire abrutir par un système scolaire qui vise des objectifs tout autres, cet œuvre place la lutte pour une éducation véritable dans le contexte de la lutte pour une société plus humaine. Met fin à toute illusion qu'on puisse séparer les institutions scolaires dans une société inégale des inégalités mêmes. Un plaisir à lire et à y réflêchir.

By HolyAtlanta

This booklet was published during the phony debate between Gore and Bush on "education reform" in the 2000 election campaign. It explains why education cannot be "reformed" under capitalism. Barnes talks about how capitalist education from grade school through college socializes us to become docile worker bees and why we have to unlearn a lot of the junk they teach in school in order to become effective fighters for workers' rights today and for a socialist future.

I have been all the way through education to a final degree and teach college now. Yet, this little pamphlet ells more about education, real education, than anything I have read before. It discusses how we need real education not just the way schools just fit us into the slots that this society wants, blaming our grades for giving people in 'good' jobs and some people into "bad," all to mask a system that exploits us all to benefit the big business rich? This pamphlet explains why this is, and how we can fight for real education. Real education is learning the tools to understand this system, learn to fight, learn to do real things in a real world, and it can't be separate from work, from life, from struggle. Check out Capitalism's World Disorder, the book this is excerpted from.

While this book is not always available on Amazon, it is always available from BooksfromPathfinder, an Amazon Z store that you can get to by clicking on New and Used further up this page!

Table of Contents
England after the Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution and the Revolution Constitution

The Facts of Life

A Bloody Progress

The Political World of William III

Wars of Words and the Battle of the Books

Faith and Fervour

England, Britain, Empire

The Political World of Queen Anne

Profits, Progress and Projects

The Wealth of the Country

The Political World of George I

Urban and Urbane

An Ordered Society

Epilogue

Chronology

Bibliography

Index

Writes Professor Roger Hainsworth, formerly of Adelaide University, South Australia: Students of English history will welcome this new volume in the New Oxford History of England series.1689-1727 is a very significant period for the history of the British people and indeed it proved important to many European people also for this reason: during it Britain became a great power and in the process the growing hegemony of France over western Europe was first confronted, fought against and finally halted. More of this later. Dr. Hoppit, although his eye is undimmed by romantic illusions about past eras, has a positive tale to tell. He writes that in late seventeen and early eighteenth century England "political discord was contained and then undermined. Warfare was endured and survived. Britain's empire was extended and its value increased. Population began slowly to grow. Many towns flourished. Agriculture, industry and commerce all showed signs of expansion .... society was not stagnant, it was on the move." This favourable assessment might have astonished contemporaries both at home and abroad. They still perceived England as politically unstable, riven by party ("faction"), and menaced by the apparently unbridgeable dynastic dispute between the Jacobite supporters of the exiled James II and then of his son (the Old Pretender) and the Whig and Orange Tory supporters of William III, Anne and the Protestant Succession (the Hanoverians). Meanwhile the British state was menaced by growing poor rates, menacing numbers of unemployed, seemingly endless foreign wars, and a growing mountain of debt: all presided over by a government which appeared more powerful and uncheckable every year and was backed by that worst of all English nightmares: a permanent army. Dr. Hoppit explores these fears and traumas incisively and expertly and makes it clearer than it perhaps has ever been made before why the positive developments prevailed and the worst fears ebbed away. The fundamental problem for historians of the period is to explain how England become a great power during the reigns of William III and Anne. Cromwell's disciplined army and a powerful navy had made England a great power fleetingly during the 1650s. However, there was no way to finance these prodigies on a long term basis. The restored Charles II almost went broke disbanding these extravagant instruments of power. England's resurgence in the two decades following the Glorious Revolution of 1689 astonished foreign observers who had believed, reasonably enough, that England's small population doomed it to the side-lines of European politics. In a long contest between Britain and France surely there could be only one result? England with Wales had only about 5.25 million in 1700. Scotland had 1.23 million and Ireland about 2 million. France, the most populous country in Europe (including Russia) had 22 million. These bare statistics proved deceptive. Although eighty per cent of England's population were rural dwellers, almost thirty per cent of the population were engaged in some form of industry. Manchester was then only a large village but Defoe estimated it provided "outside" employment to 40,000 weavers and allied trades. In fact England was the most urbanised country in Europe and if this was partly because ten per cent of the people lived in London her urbanisation was to increase hugely during the eighteenth century while London's population stagnated. Industrial strength and a powerful navy were gradually joined by a formidable army. During Anne's reign it would be led by one of history's greatest commanders who was also a remarkable diplomat and builder of alliances: the Duke of Marlborough. The financial problems of the mid seventeenth century were resolved by taxation passed freely if grumpily by the House of Commons which had now become a permanent institution of state rather than an irregular occurrence. The taxes funded that unusual novelty the National Debt which was partly managed by an enlarged Treasury assisted by an inspired creation, the Bank of England. The two great European wars of the period weakened the Continental powers, especially France, but left Britain stronger than when she entered them. Many speculated about this paradox but no great power seemed able to copy the method even supposing they understood it. All these matters receive due attention in this volume. So also does a range of other important topics: the remarkable growth of parliamentary government which in time would make possible the political peace of Sir Robert Walpole's long prime ministership during the 1720s; the decline into impotence of the Jacobites; the astonishing efflorescence of a print culture of books, newspapers and pamphlets; the slow decline of the Anglican hegemony in the face of stubborn Dissenters and ideas of religious tolerance; the extraordinarily rich burst of public and private building ranging from Wren's St Paul's to Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor's masterpieces (Castle Howard and Blenheim the best known of many); and the steady advance of pragmatic, experimental science. This last owed much to one man and in a fine passage Hoppit writes that the year his period ends is better defined not by the death of George I but by the death aged 84 of one of his subjects. Interred like a prince in Westminster Abbey with the Lord Chancellor, two dukes and three earls among his pall-bearers, he was Sir Isaac Newton. That indeed was the end of an era. This is a worthy addition to a very collectable series. There are the minor flaws often found when the author has to shoehorn a complex discourse into a confined space. Stylistic faults occasionally jar and infelicities of sentence structure ("there were those (such as Locke had done) who strongly argued ...") often require the reader to turn back to disentangle the sense. However, Dr. Hoppit's text is informative, interesting, thought-provoking and engrossing. He has explored the diverse facets of his subject with care and sensitivity to their nuances. All students of this significant period will be in his debt for decades to come. Had it been put in my hands when I was studying this period as an undergraduate I would have gnawed on it like a famished wolf.

A very well- rounded introduction to a period of British history that should be better known. The author strikes a good balance between the political narrative and his coverage of the social, economic, cultural, and military developments of the age. This book should be accessible to anyone with a serious interest in this period in European history.

As arguably one of Mark Pottle's most admiring students, it is with great pride that I write a review for this collection of letters and excerpts. Dr. Pottle has an excellent knack for using the sources from the pen of Violet Bonham Carter to shed light on the greater historical context. It is a fine biography of not only the person, but for the history of the times as well. Kudos for making a fine collection of primary sources available in one volume to the researcher and pleasure-reader alike.

An excellent book of facinating thought and mind, it bring the atmosphere around u back to life.

I found it extremely interesting, but didn't understand why it was hard to get in the shops or on the net this time.

A wonderful book- never forgotton and can't wait for a new release!

Violet Asquith Bonham Carter, had she not been female, might have become prime minister herself at some point in the 20th century. Her sharp mind and eye for political detail might have furthered her family's political fortunes after her brother Raymond, considered one of the "brightest and best" of his generation, was killed in World War I. Of course, there's nothing that would have prevented her from becoming a battlefield casualty either, if she hadn't been female. Her letters and diaries offer a view of what it was like to be an intelligent, resourceful woman of the early 20th C. with no hope of pursuing an education or a profession. Violet did the best she could under the circumstances. Although her devotion to her dead fiance is a little scary, she shows us what she was made of--fine steel. This is a peek into the times and early life of a remarkable woman. It's fortunate that we can expect another couple of volumes of her letters and diaries.

In 1926 a strike by coal miners in Britain in desperate conditions led to such a wave of solidarity that a general strike resulted. That general strike shut the whole country down and put the workers and farmers in striking distance ( no pun intended) of grabbing the brass ring : taking the whole power over, out of the hands of the Big Boss class ( who are the warlovers-warmakers as well by the way ), and establishing a workers and farmers government , so they could join the world struggle for socialism. They were betrayed by their top bureaucrat union leaders, whose hands trembled at the thought of taking governmental power, and they were betrayed by the party of the most militant , self-sacrificing, solidarity-in-action workers of the U.K. : the Communist Party, or rather its leadership ,obeying the dictates of the soon- to -be -dictator and mass murderer of communists, Joseph Stalin ( who was playing footsie with the union misleaders mentioned above at the expense of the fighting ranks ). In this book by Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. Lenin of the Russian Revolution, you can learn what happened and what could have happened in this almost-revolution. What does this have to do with workers here and now? We who do not yet lead our own unions ? We who need to start seriously resist the effects of the Second Great Depression coming in front of our eyes.? We whose own same-type union tops support Bush and the Democrats' wars- (more coming after Iraq ) for Big Oil and Big Business ? We who have no choice but to start building a working class movement to take the power out of the hands of the "civilized hyenas" ( the superrich ) ? Well, the author of this book would say to ask these questions is to answer them. It has to do with taking back control of our unions to make them fighting instruments, and all of us starting to act like the longshore workers of the West Coast; to act like the coal miners, laundry, garment, and meatpacking workers fighting to get the union in or defend the union they have; following the lead of the most recent example-- the NYC transit workers...

It also has to do with understanding that it is Stalinism, shown in this book to be the opposite of communism, that is dead. Not socialism.

When "Where is Britain Going," the central component of this collection was published in 1926, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that this book contained detailed instructions on how to overthrow capitalism in Britain and the US. This book is still pretty good for that.

Trotsky takes apart the bourgeois liberal, imperialist, and "democratic" illusions about Britain, and shows how in a time of crisis, more and more like the economic and political crisis faced in the US, Britain, and other imperialist countries today, only a revolutionary working class solution is correct. I found his criticism of the philosophy of political gradualism offered by British social democrats and Conservative politicians particularly pointed at both reformist and conservative labor bureaucrats today.

The current editions contains contemporary responses this book by British reformist labor party leaders H. N. Brailsford, Ramsey McDonald, and George Lansbury and philosopher Bertrand Russell as well as Trotsky's responses to their criticism. It also contains 20 pages of reviews of Where is Britain going from bourgeois, reformist, and communist newspapers and magazines from Britain, the US, and Germany.
Just as rich, is "After the General Strike," Trotsky's analysis of the great British General strike of 1926 and its betrayal by Britain's trade union and labor party bureaucrats?

This collection of writings by Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, provides a vivid and incisive analysis of big events in British politics in the turbulent years 1925-28. This was a time when millions of workers grappled with the lessons of the Russian Revolution, while the deep conflicts in the world capitalist economy left unresolved by World War I were pointing toward the renewed slaughter of World War II. I find these are not just interesting historical questions, but remain at the heart of politics in the 21st century with its new economic crisis and resulting drive towards war.
Trotsky's explanation of the decline of the British Empire and the shifting balance of power among the imperialist powers, especially with the rise of the United States, is a model for analyzing the world today.
So are his writings on working class political strategy. Bosses attacks against workers in Britain provoked a near-revolutionary general strike in 1926. However, the course followed by the new Communist Party in Britain, directed by the conservative Stalinist bureaucracy rising in the Soviet Union, failed to advance the struggle towards a workers seizure of power. Trotsky's writings criticizing the Stalinist course in Britain were an early part of his fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution-- and full of rich lessons for today.
Check out other writings by Trotsky such as Leon Trotsky on France, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, Leon Trotsky on the Spanish Revolution, and The Revolution Betrayed. And for current analysis of the world and working class politics, I'd recommend: Capitalism's World Disorder, Their Trotsky and Ours, and Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, all by U.S. revolutionary Jack Barnes.

Books on Japan that are worth reading must fulfill three criteria. They must be based on a direct access to primary sources, which presupposes a high degree of familiarity with the Japanese language and social history. They have to build upon the scholarly literature, including analysis and commentary presented by Japanese scholars. And they have to offer a theoretical perspective that is relevant to the subject under consideration.

The Logic of Japanese Politics meets these three criteria with a wide margin. Professor Curtis seems to know every major political figure firsthand and has developed with many of them a personal relationship since their rookie years as junior Diet members. As a distinguished political scientist, he brings intellectual breadth as well as historical depth to his topic, and has himself published extensively in Japanese. He is careful not to placate preconceived notions on the Japanese political system, and develops useful comparisons with politics in Europe (whereas most observers, including Japanese political actors, tend to overuse the comparison with US politics).

The 1990s was an important turning point for Japanese politics. From 1989 to 1998, Japan had nine prime ministers; there had been only eleven over the previous thirty-four years. From 1955 to 1993, only one party, the LDP, was in power at the national level. Then during one year beginning in August 1993, every party in the Diet except for the Communists participated in one coalition government or another. Among parties opposed to the LDP, affiliations were in such a flux that a number of Diet members stopped indicating their party membership on their name cards. Although the PLD's absence from power lasted for less than a year, before they returned to government in an alliance with their former arch-rival the Japan Socialist Party, the period marked a dramatic rupture in Japanese politics, with the end of the so-called '55 system and the quest for a new political landscape that took some time consolidating.

Each chapter focuses on a particular phase of this transition: the ouster of the LDP from government and its replacement by a seven-party coalition led by the charismatic prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa; the unraveling of this coalition that nonetheless achieved to pass an important electoral reform; the LDP's return to power in a coalition led first by the Socialist Party's chairman Tomiichi Murayama, then by former MITI minister Ryutaro Hashimoto; the disappointing results of the 1998 upper-house election and the appointment of Keizo Obuchi over Junichiro Koizumi as party chairman and head of government.

The result of these changes and reorganization was immobilism and confusion precisely at a time when Japan needed policy change and strategic direction in order to deal with an ailing economy. Despite the rhetoric on the need for political reform, administrative restructuring and deregulation, Curtis shows that the Japanese public felt ambivalent toward undoing the system that brought Japan its postwar success, and that the authorities delivered relatively little in terms of real departures from the past. He also castigates the Japanese's infatuation with the idea that the two-party system of Westminster democracy would magically cure Japanese politics from all its ills, arguing instead that the "rice-roots" quality of Japanese democracy is its strength rather than its weakness.

Distinctly Japanese political institutions are introduced throughout the text. The zokugiin is a Diet member who concentrates on a single issue, developing expertise and influence through his contacts with the bureaucracy and special interest representatives. The habatsu is a faction within the LDP bound together by ties of personal allegiance more than doctrinal content. The most powerful faction usually leaves the position of party president (and thus prime minister) to someone from another faction, while exercising power from the shadow through control of the post of party secretary-general and through controlling the composition of the prime minister's cabinet. The all-important secretary-general has final say on candidate nominations and is in charge of the party's funds, two sources of power that enable him both to do favors and to punish party members.

The kokutai or kokkai taisaku iinkai is a party's Diet-strategy committee that doubles the formal House Management Committee (giin unei iinkai, or giun) and that offers the channel for backroom deals between parties or for informal contacts with the bureaucracy. The innai kaiha is a parliamentary caucus that can be distinct from the political party (or parties) it supports. It came to play a critical role after the collapse of LDP one-party dominance in 1993 as politicians seeked to restructure the party system.

Detailed knowledge of the functioning of these institutions and others is important in order to understand how politicians operate within particular institutional constraints. Politics in Japan makes sense in Japanese terms, and clear reasoning can make sense of Japanese politics.

I have lived in Japan for a few years in the 1990s and have always assumed that (at least for now) the politicians there don't really matter. And compared to American politics, Japanese politics seemed dry with one party rule until 1993. But Curtis shows how exciting it all is under the surface. I read this book very slowly, wanting to absorb every detail; however, Curtis writes well and will keep you moving through the events of the 1990s.

So if you are a student of Japan and are trying to piece together some of the highlights you already know, read this book. Curtis has done us a great service.

As the title of the book suggests, there is a logic to Japanese politics, just as there is a logic, a coherence, to other social phenomena and behavior. This will no doubt disturb those students of the Asian "mind" who are prone to boil down Japanese "national character" to some sort of ahistorical essence. As Professor Curtis says, he hopes he "will leave the reader with a sense of the culture of Japanese politics. It is not a book that argues that culture explains Japanese politics." This is revisionism operating in a healthy sense. There are a couple of specific points I would like to make. In dissecting electoral reform, he does not mention recent play given to direct election of the prime minister, an idea first raised by Nakasone in the 1960s. Of course, the conservatives are betting this would benefit the election of a strong right-wing leader in the mold of Shintaro Ishihara, the present governor of Tokyo. Secondly, in speculating on the direction Japanese politics may take, he mentions only briefly what he terms the New Right and the implications for U.S.-Japan relations. The drift to the right in Japanese politics is unmistakable, which in its worst form would lead to remilitarization and indeed pose a problem for Far East security. Already, the national anthem and national flag, replete with their war-time associations, have been officially recognized. This past February both the upper and lower houses of the Diet formed committees to study revising the Constitution. The New Right, or neo-nationalists, if you will, see this as an opening for revising Article 9, the anti-war article. Just one small error to point out in a name: read Taku Yamasaki vice Yamazaki. All in all, this is a tremdously valuable study.

John Russell has put together in this book, simply entitled London, a wonderful guide to the memory of London in word and, most especially, visual images. Lavishly illustrated and bejeweled with paintings, photographs, drawings and maps, this is the ultimate 'coffee table' book on London. But please, don't set your coffee (or, as it is a book on London, more appropriately, tea) cup on it, and don't just let it sit there. Peruse the pages -- no reading required! Although, unless I miss my guess, you will want to read these pages that accompany such wonderful visual treats.

Russell includes drawings by Wren (who practically rebuilt London after the fire of 1666) for whom there is no monument ('If you want to see a monument, look around', he is once reported to have said, meaning the abundance of architectural monuments most of which remain to this day), Carter, Gilbert, Soane, Kip & Knyff (a print of the original drawing for Buckingham House, now Palace). Among the paintings are all famous portraitures and landscapers, scenes royal and common, serious and fanciful. Nearly 200 illustrations, including almost 100 full-colour plates of paintings, make this book a stunning edition.

Russell recounts an early comment on urban renewal, by Francis Bacon, who commented upon buying a house in an unsafe neighbourhood: 'I have bought the house in which I shall be murdered.' But, within a year, the Foreign Minister had purchased the neighbouring house, making the area safe and sought-after.

Russell said that the changes talked about here [and generally everywhere in the history of London] owe nothing to Authority. No government planned them, foresaw them, or sanctioned them. They are owed to the experimental, liberated, and sardonic temper of the individual Londoner as it has evolved.

'Like every other big city in the western world, London was built for a society that no longer exists.' This one statement perhaps best sums up the history of London. This book gives new life to that departed society, and helps to put London in its proper context.

This was obviously a labour of great love on the part of Russell. Do yourself and favour and purchase the hard-back edition. You will be glad you did.

The much-honored Russell spent nearly thirty years as chief art critic for the London Sunday Times, and then came to New York and did the same thing for the New York Times for another sixteen years. Even after leaving London, though, he still considers himself an insider of that city, and in this book he shares his fifty-year perspective with the reader. It's not a guidebook nor a travel book, but a highly idiosyncratic sort-of-memoir of London, organized around many diverse themes, including Samuel Johnson, Buckingham Palace, the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire, the role of the Thames, and what he calls the "spirit of place" -- which is one of the best chapters in this marvelous book. Throughout, he illustrates his thoughts and recollections and often witty commentary with reproductions of art and photographs of people and buildings which, brought together in one place like this, are just about worth the price of the book by themselves. One of the best books about London I've seen in years.

London, the book YOU should read. Don't waste time get the book! Do you want it? Buy it here then. London is a great book which contains an amazing amount of information that will make your brain burst!Well anybody out there want to find out about London?Come here and click on the button! London is a book that is basiclly amazing, basically real and finally, brill! Well London is basically the only book that will travel you through London. This is THE BEST BOOK ABOUT OLD LONDON!Read it in front of your children and they will know instantly about London. Read it to your friends and they will go talking about it all day long! Read it to your relatives and they will go mad about it! Read it to a stranger and they will invite you over every day!

I was happy to find this book because it answered all the questions I had about going to London and spending about six months there. It goes beyond the tourist layer of London (which is pretty thick) and gets you into the city as it exists for Londoners. Even after several months here I still refer to it often and it has helped me to really enjoy the city, away from the madding crowds.

By and large, this is an excellent series for moving beyond the usual sort of travel book and getting a look at what makes a city or a country work elsewhere in the world. I spent some time in the UK about forty years ago, got thoroughly hooked on London, and have made several visits back there since, but I was never able to figure a way to move there permanently -- or I simply never quite worked up the nerve. Whatever. The Thatcher years changed the city enormously and mostly not for the best, and the Blair years (which this book doesn't cover, obviously) probably have changed things yet again. But the root condition of "London-ness" hasn't changed in centuries, and the author does a very good job of communicating what that is, from the day-to-day workings of the "nanny state" and the natural civility and courtesy of most Londoners (most of them, most of the time) to thumbnail descriptions of the Metropolitan Area's neighborhoods and why you *really* don't want to own a car there if you can help it. Hargraves is a Yank who spent seven years living and working as an almost-ordinary bloke in London, and his perspective, leavened by dry wit, make for very engaging reading.

I'm planning on studying in London for a year or more, and was so greatful for this book. It's an interesting read, more than a reference book, but can be referred to over and over again. Reccomened if you are going to spend time living, not visiting London, or if you are just interested in the city and its culture.