'London in the Eighteenth Century': an enthralling glimpse into a glittering, cruel city

Pinkham Way demonstration

(called a 'rabble' by Barnet councillor)

Link to Daily Telegraph

"... London comes across as a visceral creature, crouching in the smoking ruins left by the fire of 1666 (where three-fifths of the city was destroyed), from which it is rearing, learning tricks both hideous and clever; cranking out the sinews and meat of new buildings and streets and squares; forming political and legal muscle, raising or crushing or hanging its populace with impunity. 

"White’s London is panting, glorious, vindictive, unapologetic, sensual and alive; a creature in stark contrast with the polite blandness one sometimes takes for London now (yet, as the 2011 riots show, a city, however mellowed, still able to pillage and burn)."