Abstract

London from Punk to Blair is a rich portrait of Europe’s foremost capital. An array of contributors, including poets, journalists, teachers, historians, wanderers, drinkers, photographers, and foodies, offer a selection of personal and subjective readings of the city since the late ’70s. These essays chart a variety of literal and metaphorical explorations through modern and postmodern London, showing how it works, and how it fails to work; what makes it vibrant, and what makes it seedy. From West End galleries to strip pubs in Shoreditch; from millionaires’ loft apartments to buses and suburban Tube stops; from film, fashion, and gay clubs to punk bands, ruinous factories, pigeon filth, and the vagaries of weather, London from Punk to Blair embraces the city like no other book has before. This revised edition includes a new introduction by editor Joe Kerr that brings the book up to date and gives the essays context for the post-recession world.   “Full of insight into the diverse experiences that constitute the recent history of London.”—Architects’ Journal   “This rewarding collection brings into clear focus those dramatic shifts in the fortunes of the metropolis. . . . Beautiful, revealing insights into particular ways of understanding and using the city.”—London Society Journal
 “In the 10 years since this book was first published, London has, says Joe Kerr, been ‘convulsed by change on a seismic scale’: globalisation, the 7/7 bombings, the financial crisis, last year's riots and the continuing ‘vertiginous vertical expansion of its skyline.’ But despite such traumas and transformations, London remains London, and the essays in this volume try to make sense of this ancient, beguiling city. In more than 30 articles, writers eloquently explore what it was like to be in London ‘in the dying years of the last century.” — The Guardian
Joe Kerris head of the Department of Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, London. Andrew Gibson is professor of modern literature and theory at Royal Holloway, University of London.