The Devil’S Highway: Urban Anxieties and Subaltern Cultures in London’s Sailortown, C.1850-1900

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Brad Beaven

The Devil’S Highway

Urban Anxieties and Subaltern Cultures in London’s Sailortown, C.1850-1900

Brad Beaven

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Manchester University Press
14 January 2025

Series: Studies in Popular Culture

Between 1850 and 1900, Ratcliffe Highway was the pulse of maritime London. Sailors from every corner of the globe found solace, and sometimes trouble, in this bustling district.

However, for social investigators, it was a place of fascination and fear as it harboured chaotic and dangerous 'exotic' communities. Sailortowns were transient, cosmopolitan and working class in character and provide us with an insight into class, race and gendered relations.

They were contact zones of heightened interaction where multi-ethnic subaltern cultures met, sometimes negotiated and at other times clashed with one another. The book argues that despite these challenges sailortown was a distinctive and functional working-class community that was self-regulating and self-moderating. The book uncovers a robust sailortown community in which an urban-maritime culture shaped a sense of themselves and the traditions and conventions that governed subaltern behaviour in the district.

By: Brad Beaven
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781526177926
ISBN 10: 1526177927
Series: Studies in Popular Culture
Pages: 214
Publication Date: 14 January 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Brad Beaven is a Professor of Social and Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth.