A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London

A unique evocation of Britain at the height of Margaret Thatcher's rule, A Journey Through Ruins views the transformation of the country through the unexpected prism of every day life in East London.Written at a time when the looming but still unfinished tower of Canary Wharf was still wrapped in protective blue plastic, its cast of characters includes council tenants trapped in disintegrating tower blocks, depressed gentrifiers worrying about negative equity, metal detectorists, sharp-eyed estate agents and management consultants, and even Prince Charles. Cutting through the teeming surface of London, it investigates a number of wider themes: the rise and dramatic fall of council housing, the coming of privatization, the changing memory of the Second World War, once used to justify post-war urban development and reform but now seen as a sacrifice betrayed. Written half a century after the blitz, the book reviews the rise and fall of the London of the post-war settlement. It remains one of the very best accounts of what it was like to live through the Thatcher years.

Table of Contents:
Going Back to Dalston: Preface to the Oxford Edition Part One: The Undemolished World of Dalston Lane 1: Street-Corner Vision 2: Around the World in Three Hundred Yards 3: All Cats are Grey by Night 4: Down in the Dirt 5: Dalston Lane Becomes a Downland Track Part Two: Brideshead and the Tower Blocks 6: Brideshead Relocated 7: Abysmal Heights 8: Rodinsky's Place 9: An Unexpected Reprieve Part Three: Scenes from the Privatized City 10: The London Bus Queue Falls Apart 11: The Vandalized Telephone Box 12: The Man with a Metal Detector 13: Drinking Water in a Toxic State Part Four: Tales of Conversion 14: The Park that Lost its Name 15: Remembering London's War 16: The Bow Quarter: Six Hundred and Seventy Luxury Flats in an Old Victorian Hell-House Part Five: Visions of the New Dawn 17: Excellence: From Fifth Avenue to Hackney Town Hall 18: Refounding the City with Prince Charles Afterwards... 19: Down Among the Gentrifiers 20: A Night to Remember 21: Brick Lane's Day of Killing 22: Don Giovanni (and Business Planning) Come to the Hackney Empire 23: Siraj Izhar's public lavatory Notes Index

About the Author :
Patrick Wright is a writer and broadcaster with an interest in the cultural dimensions of modern life. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed best-selling history books, including The Village that Died for England, Tank (described by Simon Schama as 'a tour de force'), and Iron Curtain, which John le Carre described as 'a work of wit, style and waggish erudition.' He has written for many magazines and newspapers, including the London Review of Books, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Independent, and the Observer, and has made numerous documentaries on cultural themes for both BBC Radio 3 and 4. His television work includes The River, a four-part BBC2 series on the Thames. He is also a Professor at the Institute for Cultural Analysis at Nottingham Trent University, and a fellow of the London Consortium.

Review :
`Essential reading ' iD `Astute and imaginative... An immensely heartening book... Here is a city dweller with the gusto of Baudelaire and the eye of Jane Jacobs who, undeterred by dog shit and bullshit, enjoys the chaotic humanity, the ironic architectural juxtapositions, the esprit de jeu of late twentieth century London. ' David Widgery, Independent on Sunday `Sheer good writing, sense and humanity ' Andrew Saint, Times Literary Supplement `A funny and perceptive book which is part oral history and part journalism, part generalization and part scholarship - an intriguing and attractive amalgam. ' Peter Ackroyd, The Times `There is no space in a short review to give more than a hint of the intellectual delights of this book. Witty, well written and superbly stimulating, it is a must for everybody's reading list. ' Victor Belcher, English Heritage Magazine `Patrick Wright is a wandering, disestablished scholar whose method is to walk and talk. ' Neal Ascherson, London Review of Books `This is a formidable polemic that describes a realist's vision of a Britain under private affluence amid public squalor. ' Matthew Bray, Financial Times `Patrick Wright is an incisive thinker, a man of laudable principles and a skilful writer of punchy journalistic prose. ' Charles Bourne, Hampstead & Highgate Express `Wright belongs in a select club of literary sleuths who have imagined London as a labyrinth of strange affinities... A pin-sharp miniaturist who can see the world in a grain of sand. ' Boyd Tonkin, Observer