Hanoverian London: 1714-1808

History of London #6

by George Rudé

In this survey of the life of London through the eighteenth century, the author outlines the main themes in the development of the metropolis.

Genres: History, London, Nonfiction, 18th Century

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

George Rudé was a British Marxist historian, specializing in the French Revolution and "history from below," especially the importance of crowds in history.

Reviews

[Dusty Folds · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was anticipating this to be a study and analysis of Hanoverian London, but it ended up being a summation of other works. In fact, there were chapters where Rude summarized individual works so much that I felt that I should simply read those other works. Granted, in the introduction, the author states that this is simply a summary of other works, so I should not have been surprised, but I expected more than lists of figures, statistics, and quotes. Sadly, there were some interesting chapter titles, but in those that sounded the most interesting, Rude truly left me wanting a lot more. Honestly, even if you are interested in the time period, this is still a book I would skip.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much what it says. The chronological isn't smooth and the presentation is lacking but there is useful information, mostly about the 19th century. On the other hand if you are being really thorough in your research about London in this time period, there's probably not a lot of information you haven't seen before except maybe for some obscure statistics.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading his book Europe in the 18th Century, I was disappointed in this. It was a solid but rather dull history. He covered the political structure of London in so much detail that it bored me.