Abstract

London continues to fascinate a vast audience across the world, and an extensive, diverse literature now exists describing and analyzing this metropolis. The central question - what is London? - has produced many answers but none of them, the author argues, uncovers the complex ways in which knowledge is constructed in the diverse attempts to represent places and people. On the contrary: a gulf has opened up between analysis of contemporary London as a global, postcolonial city, on the one hand, and historical accounts of the imperial capital on the other. The author shows how the gap can be bridged by combining an analysis of the representation over time by various experts of London and certain localities with an investigation of the ways in which residents have represented their communities through struggles over symbolic and material resources.

John Eade is Reader in the Faculty of Social and Life Sciences, University of Surrey, Roehampton.

"[The] book is neatly divided into three tours of the focal districts of Central London [and] replete with lurid and dangerous sights and sounds ... I am lured by Eade's new manual to travel to London to sample samosas, discover provocative multicultural art and theater, and make nocturnal sorties for the hoisting of ales."  · Urban Affairs

"[The author] writes clearly and with feeling ... [The information] is always plausible and well documented."  · Contemporary Sociology

"... an excellent ... wonderful collection of essays."  · Friends Newsletter, Max Kade Institute

"An impressive and scholarly analysis ... a profound, college-level retrospective and highly recommended."   · The Midwest Book Review

"... a timely and innovative study. The scholarship is sound and the book is well organised and clearly written."  · Les Back, Goldsmiths College