Second City

Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain

Richard Vinen

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Paperback

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English

Penguin Books Ltd
07 September 2023

British & Irish history; Social & cultural history; Industrialisation & industrial history; Migration, immigration & emigration

Richard Vinen makes a compelling case for Birmingham as the overlooked heart of British history

For over a century, Birmingham has been the second largest town in England. In his richly enjoyable new book Richard Vinen captures the drama of a small village that grew to become the quintessential city of the twentieth century- a place of mass production and full employment that began in the 1930s, but which came to a cataclysmic halt in the 1980s. Birmingham has also been a magnet for migration, drawing in people from Wales, Ireland, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Indeed, much of British history can be explained, in large measure, with reference to Birmingham.

Vinen roots his sweeping story in the experience of individuals. This is a book about figures everyone has heard of, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Duran Duran, and also about those that everyone ought to have heard of. It captures the ways in which hundreds of thousands of people - from the Welsh miners who poured into the car factories to the young women who danced to reggae in the basement of Rebecca's nightclub - were caught up in the convulsions of social change.

Birmingham is not a pretty place, and its history does not always make for comfortable reading. But modern Britain does not make sense without it.

By: Richard Vinen
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 404g
ISBN: 9780141993171
ISBN 10: 0141993170
Pages: 592
Publication Date: 07 September 2023
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Richard Vinen is Professor of History at King's College, London and the author of a number of major books. He won the Wolfson Prize for History for National Service (2014).

Reviews for Second City: Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain

Vinen's biography of the city is a spirited attempt at uncovering the mystery of how Birmingham, in his view, has managed for so long to stand at the centre of Britain's modern industrial, economic, political and cultural history without anyone noticing... This absorbing book shows us how we did it. -- Lynsey Hanley * Observer * Richard Vinen's new history of his native city explains everything ... Vinen has written a history of Birmingham, but it is also a theory of Birmingham. And also, perhaps, a theory of England. I buy it. -- Matthew Sweet * Daily Telegraph * [A] sweeping history ... There's a much better story to be told [about Birmingham] - and it's revealed between the covers of this book. -- Pete Paphides * The Times * A superb retort to [the] slings and arrows of derision ... Birmingham's very mutability ... is the key to its survival. -- Stuart Jeffries * Spectator * Absorbing ... There is unlikely to be a fuller or more informative history of Birmingham than Vinen's. -- Jonathan Coe * Financial Times * Birmingham's ordinariness has prevented us from seeing what is extraordinary in its history. Brummies shaped our everyday world ... Vinen's book provides a template for how we might level up the way we write about England's northern and Midland cities. -- Robert Colls * Literary Review * Second City makes the case that Brum is, for all its amorphousness, England's second city, and rightly pays tribute to Joe Chamberlain for transforming it through his progressive policies in the 1870s. -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph Books of 2022 * A key text for understanding our times ... Highly recommended, truly thought provoking. -- Ruth Barbour * Open History * PRAISE FOR NATIONAL SERVICE: Written with compassion and insight, Vinen's book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of postwar Britain. -- Tony Barber * Financial Times Books of the Year * I can't recall ever having read so unexpectedly fascinating a book... every single page has something of great interest on it. -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *