Product Description

Victorian cities, so long the object of derision as a byword for deprivation, are now celebrated as an urban ideal. They are widely heralded among modern planners and politicians for their active citizenship, local democracy, and civic spirit. This is a history of the ideas that shaped not only London, but Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield and other power-houses of 19th-century Britain. It charts the controversies and visions that fostered Britain's greatest civic renaissance. Tristram Hunt explores the horrors of the Victorian city, as seen by Dickens, Engels and Carlyle; the influence of the medieval Gothic ideal of faith, community and order espoused by Pugin and Ruskin; the reaction led by Macaulay and Mill, who were repelled by the faux medievalism of the early Victorian years and who championed progress and industry; the pride in self-government, identified with the Saxons as opposed to the Normans; the identification with the city republics of the Italian renaissance - commerce, trade and patronage; the change from the civic to the municipal, and greater powers over health, education and housing, especially in Joe Chamberlain's Birmingham; and finally at the end of the century, the retreat from the urban to the rural ideal, led by William Morris and the garden-city movement of Ebenezer Howard.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #427088 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-10
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Matthew Sweet, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (13.6.04)
'The argument of BUILDING JERUSALEM is a seductive one.'

Review
" It is impossible to understand Britain today without knowing the part played in its history by the Victorian cities. BUILDING JERUSALEM is a key text which should be read by all politicians,in local and central government, and by anyone interested in the way we live now. It is deeply researched, but written in an highly accessible way, and the reader never loses sight of the vitally relevant and interesting story Tristram Hunt has to tell. It is history writing at its compulsive best" (AN Wilson )

'his book [has a] prodigious range and passionate enthusiasm, and his skill is in showing how ideas...can take over minds, change landscapes and mould the future. It is a rich, nutritious read.' (John Carey SUNDAY TIMES (30.5.04) )

'Hunt's convincing history is vividly narrated, all the more so as it features many contemporary voices, including generous quotation from contemporary literature, eye-witness accounts, reportage, diaries, tracts and polemics - the words of Engels, Southey, Carlyle, Ruskin, Macaulay, Cobden and their like...BUILDING JERUSALEM is an ambitoius work of of rigorous scholarship...[and] one of the most appealing things about Hunt's style is that he makes complicated ideas accessible.' (Kate Colquhoun SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (6.6.04) )

'[Hunt] has an infectious enthusiasm which brings his subject to life, an eye for detail and biographical anecdote, and a racy, readable style. This is a valuable book on an important subject which has been neglected for too long.' (Jane Ridley LITERARY REVIEW (1.6.04) )

'The argument of BUILDING JERUSALEM is a seductive one.' (Matthew Sweet INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (13.6.04) )

'[BUILDING JERUSALEM] is a book as big and ambitious and convincing as its subject...Developing his thesis that the Victorian city ineveitably led to the Victorian suburb, Hunt is excellent...BUILDING JERUSALEM is a marvellous book because it reminds us if these important ideas and helps us to appreciate the glorious Victorian inheritance.' (Stephen Bayley GUARDIAN (12.6.04) )

'There is a great deal to admire about BUILDING JERUSALEM...the most inspiring chapters describe the great campaigns for social reform.' (Roy Hattersley OBSERVER (13.6.04) )

'[a] lively analysis of the Victorian city...[Hunt] brings alive his cast of Victorian city-builders, physical, political and intellectual. He describes what they were like as people, and how their thoughts were translated into steam-age brick, iron, terracotta, marble and glass...[a] lucid and questioning book.' (Jonathan Glancey NEW STATESMAN (21.6.04) )

'Tristram Hunt's book uncovers the intellectual history behind the making of our great Victorian cities. He examines the political, cultural and religious debates and shows how certain fashions, such as medievalism, gripped the 19th century imagination. His critical re-evaluation of what the Victorian civic spirit achieved should be read...by all politicians in local and central government...His wealth of knowledge is engaging, as is his style, and the drama of his subject.' (Frances Spalding INDEPENDENT (18.6.04) )

'Hunt's grasp of architectural, intellectual and high cultural history is assured.' (David Kynaston FINANCIAL TIMES MAGAZINE (19.6.04) )

'There are many useful facts in this book. It is a stimulting work.' (Simon Heffer SPECTATOR (19.6.04) )

'an absorbing history...With hugely broad scope, this provides a fascinating insight into the continuing impact of this period on contemporary lives.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE (1.6.04) )

'In vividly readable prose, Hunt evokes people and places, many of which he has visited, with a sharp eye for anecdotal detail...BUILDING JERUSALEM does...with great passion and style, break new ground.' (John Gardiner HISTORY TODAY (September 2004) )

'this thought-provoking book, BUILDING JERUSALEM, is an important contribution to British social history.' (Richard Aldous IRISH TIMES (21.8.04) )

'This is a book for anyone who loves cities; their chaotic enthusiasm and massive contradictions as well as their enduring ability to both create and solve the most complex of societies' problems.' (Nick Bibby SUNDAY HERALD (29.8.04) )

'The historiographer is rich and complex, the sources voluminous. Hunt's is an intersteding and readable book.' (Asa Briggs THE VICTORIAN (November 2004) )

'Tristram Hunt is an elegant writer who has captured in this important and timely book the significance and importance of the great northern cities in the Victorian age...This is a book that should not only be read, but discussed by us as readers.' (Peter Fell THE READER )

David Kynaston, FINANCIAL TIMES MAGAZINE (19.6.04)
'Hunt's grasp of architectural, intellectual and high cultural history is assured.'

Customer Reviews

Interesting topic, badly conveyed
I bought Hunt's book because I'm interested in urban history. However, I was assured by other readers that this was an accessable book. I found this not to be the case in fact. It's too academic, and I feel at times Hunt is grappling with confused arguments in his own head. Rather like thinking aloud, but rather awkwardly. Which is apt really, since this is a rather awkward book. However, others may find it a little more readable. 3 stars go largely to the introduction which I found the most interesting part of the whole book.

A Great Read
This is a fascinating book. Scholarly, well-written and full of surprising and entertaining stories. Hunt evokes life in Britain's great Victorian cities better than anyone else I've read. I loved it!

Well-researched, but flawed, account of Victorian cities
Hunt, a university lecturer and government adviser, has written a considerable work, based on years of research, but flawed by its pro-Labour, anti-working class perspective. He quotes John Prescott, "We are all middle class" - true enough of Labour Ministers and their cronies.

But the world's first industries and the world's first industrial cities were built by the world's first working class. In this book, trade unions are almost invisible - a walk-on part when Manchester Town Hall opened in 1878, a demand for better conditions for Glasgow's tramworkers, but Hunt cannot see the working class's role in creating industry, only 'restrictive labour practices'.

He approves the Victorian economist James Mill's arrogant and idealist claim that the capitalist class contains 'the heads that invent, and the hands that execute' and 'the men who in fact think for the rest of the world'. The reactionary diatribes of Carlyle, Pugin and Ruskin, and the bourgeois triumphalism of a Macaulay, were equally idealist.

Too often, Victorian capitalists had prestige projects built, at the cost of urban development, putting palaces before people. Self-styled merchant princes, seeing themselves as the new Medici, romanced 'Saxon self-government' and smugly rejected planning for public health.

The Victorian ruling class saw London as the imperial city, with its irredeemable natives. Hunt sees people's moves to the suburbs and to garden cities as wilful failures to solve London's problems, and joins Betjeman, Orwell, Williams-Ellis and Priestley in snobbish hatred of the suburbs, despite acknowledging that many people do want to live there.

Hunt calls for a restoration of local democracy, noting that in the 1890s, Londoners elected 12,000 of their fellow-citizens to run hospitals, schools and transport; now 36,000 quangocrats decide for us. Successive governments' rate capping, surcharging and cash limits have weakened the 'innovative local government and civic pride' that Hunt celebrates, yet he ignores completely the biggest current threat to local (and national) democracy - Labour's EU-driven regionalisation policy.

He applauds the knowledge economy - though isn't all productive work knowledge-based? But we also need steel, ships, vehicles and clothes, which we should be producing ourselves, instead of relying on imported goods.