London in the Eighteenth Century

A Great and Monstrous Thing

By: Jerry White

Narrated by: Neil Gardner

Jerry White's London in the Eighteenth Century is an unrivalled, panoramic account of the city's dramatic century of rebirth by its leading expert.

London in the eighteenth century had risen from the ashes. The city and its people had been brought to the brink by the Great Fire of 1666. But the century that followed was a period of vigorous expansion, of scientific and artistic genius, of blossoming reason, civility, elegance and manners. It was also an age of extremes: of starving poverty and exquisite fashion, of joy and despair, of sentiment and cruelty.

In Jerry White’s acclaimed history of London’s magnificent and boisterous rebirth we witness the astonishing drama of daily life in the midst of this burgeoning city.

©2012 Jerry White (P)2019 Audible, Ltd

Complete Sociohistory

Personally I prefer to have a deeper insight into how people actually lived in particular places at particular times and London in the 18th Century is excellent as this is just before Modernity just begins to begin its exponential roll powered by the mass use of Coal.
London is the emerging World Capital and choosing to outline this city in this era is a brilliant idea.
As a reader/listener you will be more interested in lives lived rather than the Great Man theory of history.

learnt a lot about 18th century London

the book cover many different aspects about life in London in the 1700's from work to politics, to expansion, architecture, art, minorities, money

Extremely detailed. Best for someone interested in the minutiae of 1700s London

I slogged through the first four hours of extreme detail about architecture in Eighteen century London, but couldn’t make it through the following painfully long and detailed list of famous residents who moved to London from outside of the city. This audiobook might be useful for a person extremely interested in the minutiae of 1700 London, but I would have preferred the author choose a story or thesis and interwoven the details into the larger storyline. As it is, it reads like a PhD dissertation. If that’s what you are looking for, this is the book for you. I certainly can’t argue with the author’s considerable research effort.