Second City
Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain
Published on 1. September 2022
Book
Hardback
592 pages
978-0-241-45453-4 (ISBN)
Description
A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
'A spirited attempt at uncovering the mystery of how Birmingham has managed for so long to stand at the centre of Britain's history without anyone noticing ... This absorbing book shows us how we did it' Observer
'Vinen has written a history of Birmingham, but it is also a theory of Birmingham. And also, perhaps, a theory of England. I buy it' Daily Telegraph
For over a century, Birmingham has been the second largest town in England, and central to modern history. In his richly enjoyable new book Richard Vinen captures the drama of a small village that grew to become the quintessential city of the twentieth century: a place of mass production, full employment and prosperity that began in the 1930s, but which came to a cataclysmic halt in the 1980s. For most of that time, Birmingham has also been a magnet for migration, drawing in people from Wales, Ireland, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Indeed, much of British history - the passage of the first reform bill, the rise and fall of the Chamberlain dynasty, racial tension - can be explained, in large measure, with reference to Birmingham.
Vinen roots his sweeping story in the experience of individuals. This is a book about figures everyone has heard of, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Duran Duran. It is also about those that everyone ought to have heard of - such as Dick Etheridge, the all-powerful Communist convenor at the Longbridge factory, or Stan Crooke, one of the remarkable West Indians interviewed for the 1960s documentary The Colony. It captures the ways in which hundreds of thousands of people - from the Welsh miners who poured into the car factories in the 1930s to the young women who danced to reggae in the basement of Rebecca's nightclub in the 1980s - were caught up in the convulsions of social change.
Birmingham is not a pretty place, and its history does not always make for comfortable reading. But modern Britain does not make sense without it.
'There is unlikely to be a fuller or more informative history of Birmingham than Vinen's' Jonathan Coe, Financial Times
'A spirited attempt at uncovering the mystery of how Birmingham has managed for so long to stand at the centre of Britain's history without anyone noticing ... This absorbing book shows us how we did it' Observer
'Vinen has written a history of Birmingham, but it is also a theory of Birmingham. And also, perhaps, a theory of England. I buy it' Daily Telegraph
For over a century, Birmingham has been the second largest town in England, and central to modern history. In his richly enjoyable new book Richard Vinen captures the drama of a small village that grew to become the quintessential city of the twentieth century: a place of mass production, full employment and prosperity that began in the 1930s, but which came to a cataclysmic halt in the 1980s. For most of that time, Birmingham has also been a magnet for migration, drawing in people from Wales, Ireland, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Indeed, much of British history - the passage of the first reform bill, the rise and fall of the Chamberlain dynasty, racial tension - can be explained, in large measure, with reference to Birmingham.
Vinen roots his sweeping story in the experience of individuals. This is a book about figures everyone has heard of, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Duran Duran. It is also about those that everyone ought to have heard of - such as Dick Etheridge, the all-powerful Communist convenor at the Longbridge factory, or Stan Crooke, one of the remarkable West Indians interviewed for the 1960s documentary The Colony. It captures the ways in which hundreds of thousands of people - from the Welsh miners who poured into the car factories in the 1930s to the young women who danced to reggae in the basement of Rebecca's nightclub in the 1980s - were caught up in the convulsions of social change.
Birmingham is not a pretty place, and its history does not always make for comfortable reading. But modern Britain does not make sense without it.
'There is unlikely to be a fuller or more informative history of Birmingham than Vinen's' Jonathan Coe, Financial Times
Reviews / Votes
Vinen's biography of the city is a spirited attempt at uncovering the mystery of how Birmingham, in his view, has managed for so long to stand at the centre of Britain's modern industrial, economic, political and cultural history without anyone noticing... This absorbing book shows us how we did it. -- Lynsey Hanley * Observer * Richard Vinen's new history of his native city explains everything ... Vinen has written a history of Birmingham, but it is also a theory of Birmingham. And also, perhaps, a theory of England. I buy it. -- Matthew Sweet * Daily Telegraph * [A] sweeping history ... There's a much better story to be told [about Birmingham] - and it's revealed between the covers of this book. -- Pete Paphides * The Times * A superb retort to [the] slings and arrows of derision ... Birmingham's very mutability ... is the key to its survival. -- Stuart Jeffries * Spectator * Absorbing ... There is unlikely to be a fuller or more informative history of Birmingham than Vinen's. -- Jonathan Coe * Financial Times * Birmingham's ordinariness has prevented us from seeing what is extraordinary in its history. Brummies shaped our everyday world ... Vinen's book provides a template for how we might level up the way we write about England's northern and Midland cities. -- Robert Colls * Literary Review * Second City makes the case that Brum is, for all its amorphousness, England's second city, and rightly pays tribute to Joe Chamberlain for transforming it through his progressive policies in the 1870s. -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph Books of 2022 * A key text for understanding our times ... Highly recommended, truly thought provoking. -- Ruth Barbour * Open History * PRAISE FOR NATIONAL SERVICE: Written with compassion and insight, Vinen's book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of postwar Britain. -- Tony Barber * Financial Times Books of the Year * I can't recall ever having read so unexpectedly fascinating a book... every single page has something of great interest on it. -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 39 mm
Weight
800 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-45453-4 (9780241454534)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Richard Vinen is Professor of History at King's College, London and the author of a number of major books. He won the Wolfson Prize for History for National Service (2014).