The East End - Softcover

Alan-palmer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 071955666X ISBN 13: 9780719556661

Publisher: John Murray, 2000

Synopsis

For centuries the East End of London was synonymous with poverty and brutal labor, with Cockney solidarity and popular protest. The poverty is still there but now—once again—East London is beginning to reshape itself. Fashionable riverside restaurants multiply and shining new office buildings spread south toward the Millennium Dome. Now the term “East End” begins to have a different ring.

Alan Palmer takes us back through four centuries of life in this great melting pot, which was once the very center of Empire trade. Both people and goods have flowed in and out of it, from the Huguenot weavers of the seventeenth century to the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis of today.  Its story is one of extremes—of narrow, dingy streets and grand Hawksmoor churches, of great social campaigners, and out-and-out criminals like the Krays. This fascinating book, with an introduction by London’s great chronicler Peter Ackroyd, captures the spirit of the East End and its people, of those who have left their mark on it and those whose lives were marked by it forever.

 

About this title

About the Author

Alan Palmer has written more that thirty books including "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire", "Dictionary of the British Empire and Commonwealth", and "Victory 1918". He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1980.

From Booklist

The East End of London has generally conjured up negative images: severe poverty, vicious crime (including the "Ripper" murders), and illicit "pleasure houses" where some of the London elite would flock to indulge their baser desires. Of course, the reality was always more complex, which is particularly true now as the East End is the scene of massive urban redevelopment and even gentrification. Palmer is the author of more than 30 books and a member of the Royal Society of Literature. He writes with a sharp, witty style that is ideal for his survey of an area that always seems about to bubble over with diversity and vitality. His examination of the turbulence resulting from the ongoing immigration of various ethnic groups into the East End is both insightful and stimulating. While his examination of East End conflicts in the Victorian age treads over familiar ground, readers should find his portrayals of life there in the eighteenth century and especially in the 1990s to be fascinating and surprising. Jay Freeman
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About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 071955666X
• ISBN 13: 9780719556661
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220