Second City

Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain

Richard Vinen

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Hardback

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English

Allen Lane
15 October 2022

History; 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, and at the heart of British history. In his enjoyable and thoughtful new book, Richard Vinen captures the drama of a small village that grew to become the quintessential city of the twentieth century- a place once synonymous with mass production, full employment and prosperity but which came to a cataclysmic halt in the 1980s. For much of its existence, Birmingham has been a great magnet for migration, drawing in a significant proportion of South Wales as well as people from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Indeed, much of British history - the passage of the first reform bill, the rise and fall of the Chamberlain dynasty, racial tension - only makes sense when Birmingham is brought into the picture.

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 those that everyone ought to have heard of, such as the Communist convenor at the Longbridge factory or the remarkable West Indians interviewed for the 1960s documentary The Colony. It also captures the ways in which hundreds of thousands of people - from the Welsh miners who poured into the car factories to a young woman dancing 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: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 39mm
Weight: 800g
ISBN: 9780241454534
ISBN 10: 0241454530
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 15 October 2022
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
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 *