Foundations: How the Built Environment Made Twentieth-Century Britain

(Hardback)

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Description

An urban history of modern Britain, and how the built environment shaped the nation's politics Foundations is a history of twentieth-century Britain told through the rise, fall, and reinvention of six different types of urban space: the industrial estate, shopping precinct, council estate, private flats, shopping mall, and suburban office park.

Reviews

"Shortlisted for the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain"
"Winner of the Historians of British Art Book Prize, Contemporary Subject"
"[A] brilliant new history. . . . A highly convincing book, with the sort of clarity and panoramic scope that is too often, in books on this subject, lost in architectural and decorative minutiae."---Owen Hatherley, Tribune Magazine
"Elegantly written. . . . [A] timely contribution."---Alistair Fair, Architectural History
"An academic modernist sees opportunity in disruption."---John Gapper, Financial Times
"[A] scintillating and thoroughly engaging book, which rightly urges us to pay closer attention to the built environment in our understanding of how modern Britain came to be."---Phil Child, Journal of Contemporary History
"Foundations is a fascinating contribution . . . illuminating fluently and engagingly the still-hidden history of the mundane spaces that Britons have inherited, many of which they continue to inhabit."---Simon Gunn, Journal of British Studies
"An excellent book. It is deeply researched, thoughtfully argued, and beautifully written."---Erika Hanna, American Historical Review

Author Bio

Sam Wetherell is lecturer in the history of Britain and the world at the University of York. Twitter @samwetherell