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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
5.0étoiles sur 5
The London I Never Knew!, Jui 5 2008
This is a popular history that everyone should read before venturing into the heart of modern London, truly the capital of the world. With the help of an extraordinary large collection of historical facts about this unique metropolis over the past millenium, Ackroyd weaves a story that takes his reader inside the very lives of Londoners during various periods. His writing is so clear, concise and comprehensive that the reader should have no problems hearing the sounds, smelling the smells, and seeing the motley humanity of an overcrowded city. This is a story that not only shares the fascinating evolution of a village becoming a town becoming a city, but also peels back many of the layers that no longer exist today. We see a London that grew rapidly and chaotically between the Elizabethan and Restoration eras because nobody was willing to develop a building code or plan that regulated size, style and density of housing. The city fathers had no inclination to clean up a city that was increasingly befouled by grime, slime, vermin and pestilence. It grew simply because thousands of people yearned to be there to partake of its food, drink, entertainment, commerce, and crime. Everything about the city was public, rude and raucous. Only when things got so intolerable did nature and technology step in to revitalize and reform it: the Great Plague, the London Fire, introduction of new architecture, the advent of gaslights, the development of an underground sewage system, the building of the underground, and the construction of more bridges. Each of these innovations involved some very special Londoners, whose story Ackroyd very eloquently tells. I was thoroughly entertained by this masterful tome that seems to have the last word on London Town as one incredible expression of a diverse yet rich humanity. Secretly, I wish I could go back in time to relive what Ackroyd so vividly describes in his writing.
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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
5.0étoiles sur 5
A Feast, Mai 23 2002
A wonderful book. Don't neglect to read the bibliography, which is a feast in itself.
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3.0étoiles sur 5
Needs a story, Jui 22 2003
A "biography" is the story of a life, usually told more or less in chronological order. Peter Ackroyd's London, however, is really a series of interconnected essays on London: on food, on drink, on the weather, on fog, on darkness, on streetlights, etc. Too many of these essays take the form of a set of quotes, each followed by a sentence or two of explication, rather than brief narratives. Ackroyd has found some great quotes, and some fascinating facts, and does a superb job evoking the feeling of the city at different times and in different aspects. When he does tell a story, such as the story of the Gordon riots, he tells it well. I was left looking for more story, and fewer quotes.
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