ROY PORTER is Professor in the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London. He is most recently the author of THE GREATEST BENEFIT TO MANKIND (HarperCollins, 1998) and the forthcoming (10/00) Allen Lane title ENLIGHTENMENT: BRITAIN AND THE CREATION OF THE MODERN WORLD.
Vigorous, well-illustrated survey of England's capital, from its earliest times to the present decade, covering buildings and government as well as trade, transport, manufacture and daily life. Plentiful quotations from earlier authors display the width of Porter's reading; his love of London is as evident as his mastery of the historian's trade. (Kirkus UK)