The Times Picture Collection: London Book

This title presents a photographic portrait of this London, which captures the changing face of the capital through the 20th century. Long gone are the days when being a Londoner meant being born within the sound of Bow Bells. London as a city, a place in which to live and work, has attracted peple from all over the country and all over the world, giving it possibly the most ethnically diverse population of any city worldwide. Architecturally, London has undergone two catastrophic changes that have changed its skyline forever. One was the Great Fire of London, which gave the city the basic shape that it had at the beginning of the 20th century; the other was the Blitz - photographs from before and after the war show an enormous amount of change. Forty years later came the less traumatic but almost as widescale changes wrought by the Thatcherite spending spree in the City and Docklands during the 1980s, and the picture of London towards the end of the 20th century was one of accelerating change.Read More