Housing in Urban Britain 1780 1914

By Richard Rodger and Richard Rodger

Book Overview

Why did slums and suburbs develop simultaneously? Did the capitalist system produce these, and were class antagonisms to blame? Why did the Victorians believe there was a housing problem, and who or what created it? What housing solutions were attempted, and how successfully? These are amongst the central questions addressed by social and urban historians in recent years, and their arguments and analyses are reviewed here. The history of housing between 1780 and 1914 encapsulates many problems associated with the transition from a largely rural to an overwhelmingly urban nation. The unprecedented pace of this transition imposed immense tensions within society, with implications for the urban environment and for local and national government. Housing is central to an understanding of the social, economic, political and cultural forces in nineteenth-century history; this book is an ideal introduction to the topic.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521557860
• ISBN13: 9780521557863
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 114 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Useful Text

This book is really written for the professional historian, not the casual reader, but as a research document, it is quite good. Surveying the general state of housing in the United Kingdom with a primary focus on poor and middle-class dwellings, the book is complete and thorough, despite its relative brevity. If you want a handle on what terrace housing was like, and the conditions of the poor throughout the late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras, the text will be useful to you.