London: A Social History (A "New York Times" notable boo

LondonA Social History\nAuthor(s): Roy Porter\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Harvard University Press, United States\nImprint: Harvard University Press\nISBN-13: 9780674538399, 978-0674538399\nSynopsis\nThis dazzling and yet intimate book is the first modern one-volume history of London from Roman times to the present. An extraordinary city, London grew from a backwater in the Classical age into an important medieval city, a significant Renaissance urban center, and a modern colossus. Roy Porter paints a detailed landscape--from the grid streets and fortresses of Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror to the medieval, walled \""most noble city\"" of churches, friars, and crown and town relationships. Within the crenelated battlements, manufactures and markets developed and street-life buzzed.\n\nLondon's profile in 1500 was much as it was at the peak of Roman power. The city owed its courtly splendor and national pride of the Tudor Age to the phenomenal expansion of its capital. It wa.