Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City

Britain was the first country on Earth to witness the Industrial Revolution -- and my, oh, my was it ugly! Millions of economically displaced families moved from the countryside and Ireland to work in the burgeoning cotton, metal and coal industries during the early 19th century. Cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds were completely overwhelmed by the human influx, becoming breeding places for mass poverty and the disease that followed. The living conditions were nothing less than murderous -- as bad as anything in the Third World today. In this college-level book, Tristram Hunt chronicles how British society responded to the crisis. "Building Jerusalem" is an intellectual history of the ideas that transformed squalor-bound urban areas into a new organizational model based on civic pride and public works. We learn how the Romantic vision of medieval chivalry (as retold in popular novels like "Ivanhoe") influenced the ground-level urban activists -- along with powerful forms of Christian compassion and nationalism. The Victorian urban reform movement succeeded in many areas, but fell short in others. Ultimately, the coming of the 20th century undermined many of the core ideas that sustained the movement and led to a new focus on suburban development instead. Hunt's writing is lively, particularly in the first 200 pages, and his research is impeccable. Unfortunately, the second half of the book drags a bit as he delves too deeply into the biographies of certain key characters, like John Ruskin. I would have split this book into two different volumes, the first from 1770 to about 1880, the second volume from 1880 to 2000. The photos are valuable, but we need more maps, illustrations and graphics to understand the true nature of this earth-shaking transformation. Bottom line: Worth reading, but could be better organized.

Historians must take an ideological stance or they become but poor reporters of facts. Hunt's research and approach is brilliant. Whether you agree with him on his interpretation of the facts is your business. Great history is written with great passion. This book is a very fine example of the rare art of the historian.