Tristram Hunt - Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City

It is impossible to understand Britain today without Knowing the part played in its history by the Victorian cities. Building Jerusalem is a key text which should be ready by all politician, in local and central government, and by anyone interested in the way we live now. It is deeply researched, but written in an highly accessible way, and the reader never loses sight of the vitally relevant and interesting story Tristram Hunt has to tell. It is history writing at its compulsive best A.N. Wilson

What matters is his books prodigious range and passionate enthusiasm, and his skill in showing how ideas, however foolish, can take over minds, change landscapes and mould the future. It is a rich, nutritious read John Carey, Sunday Times

Hunt has an infectious enthusiasm which brings his subject to life, and eye for detail and biographical anecdote, and a racy, readable style. This is a valuable book on an important subject which has been neglected for too long Jane Ridley, Literary Review

Hunts convincing history is vividly narrated Building Jerusalem is an ambitious work of rigorous scholarship it rarely fails to be engaging his achievement is in getting to the heart of the great Victorian cities, and in surprising us by making them appear seductive Kate Colquhoun, Sunday Telegraph

[Building Jerusalem] is a book as big and ambitious and convincing as its subject Developing his thesis that the Victorian city inevitably led to the Victorian suburb, Hunt is excellent Building Jerusalem is a marvellous book because it reminds us of these important ideas and helps us to appreciate the glorious Victorian inheritance Stephen Bayley, Guardian

There is a great deal to admire about Building Jerusalem its scope, its clarity and the enthusiasm with which it celebrates its subject the most inspiring chapters describe the great campaigns for social reform Roy Hattersley, Observer

This lively analysis of the Victorian city Throughout Building Jerusalem, Hunt makes use of such telling anecdotes to bring alive his cast of Victorian city-builders, physical, political and intellectual this lucid and questioning book Jonathan Glancey, New Statesman

Tristram Hunts book uncovers the intellectual history behind the making of our great Victorian cities His critical re-evaluation of what the Victorian civic spirit achieved should be read by all politicians in local and central government His wealth of knowledge is engaging Frances Spalding, Independent

This thought-provoking book, Building Jerusalem, is an important contribution to British social history Irish Times

This is a book for anyone who loves cities; their chaotic enthusiasm and massive contradictions as well Nick Bibby, Sunday Herald

A wonderful overview of the Victorian city Andrew Marr, Daily Telegraph

An ambitious book Hunt is refreshingly wide-ranging in his choice of witnesses Sunday Times

An excellent account of the growth of the Victorian city and its decline under the competition of the suburbs Douglas Hurd, Sunday Telegraph

In vividly readable prose, Hunt evokes people and places with a sharp eye for anecdotal detail Building Jerusalem does with great passion and style, break new ground John Gardiner, History Today

It is remarkable, that one of the most singular places in the universe is without an historian; that she has never manufactured an history of herself, who has manufactured almost everything else; that so many ages should elapse, and not one among her numerous sons of industry, snatch manners of the day from oblivion, group them in design, with the touches of his pen, and exhibit the picture to posterity.

William Hutton, The History of Birmingham (1835)

And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, that we manufacture there everything except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantage.

John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (18513)

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon Englands mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On Englands pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark Satanic mills?

William Blake, Jerusalem

To my parents

Selfridges Building, Birmingham (photograph Rowan Isaac).

Endpapers: Birmingham 1886 by J. Brewer.

: Birmingham, 2004 (photograph Rowan Isaac).

The author and the publishers offer their thanks to the following for their kind permission to reproduce images:

Art Archive

National Trust Archive

Bridgeman Art Library

National Portrait Library, London

Edifice

Private Collection

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford/Bridgeman Art Library

Bradford Heritage Library

Mary Evans Picture Library

Lucinda Lambton/Arcaid

Manchester City Council

National Monuments Record

Aerofilms

Arcaid (main picture); Collections (inset)

Birmingham Library Services

I would like to thank, first of all, the supervisor of my original thesis on Victorian civic thought, Gareth Stedman Jones. It was his commitment to the history of ideas, together with his vast knowledge of the nineteenth centurys intellectual currents, which provided a continual source of inspiration and guidance through the long gestation of this book. I am greatly obliged to Thomas Dixon, Boyd Hilton, Simon Skinner, Simon Szreter, Matthew Taylor and Chris Turner for commenting on various drafts. I would also like to thank Andrew Adonis, Virginia Davis, Peter Hennessy, Jemima Hunt, Terry Morris, Rebecca Nicolson, Jonathan Parry, Emma Rothschild, Miri Rubin, David Runciman, David Sainsbury, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, Andrew Wilson and Bee Wilson for their help over the years.

Work on this project has taken me through numerous institutions and I am indebted to the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the University of Chicago; the Centre for History and Economics, Kings College, Cambridge; the Institute for Public Policy Research; and the Faculty of Arts, Queen Mary, University of London.

I am very grateful to the legion of curators, security guards, guides and custodians who allowed me to wander through their civic institutions. I would also like to thank Stephen Price of Bristol Museums and Art Gallery; staff at the Rare Books Room, Cambridge University Library; the Humanities Two reading room at the British Library; and the Thoresby Society, Leeds who were all generous with their time. My thanks to the John Betjeman Estate and his publisher, John Murray, for permission to quote from his works.

Ion Trewin has been an enormously supportive and wise editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson. I am also grateful to Victoria Webb and Emma Finnigan, to Tom Graves for his superb pictorial eye, and to Linden Lawson for her excellent work in correcting my more grievous mistakes. Those remaining are mine alone. My agent Georgina Capel has provided unfailing encouragement and advice. I would also like to thank Anthony Cheetham for the original commissioning of this book.