No Free Parking: The Curious History of London's Monopoly Streets

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'Highly entertaining' - The Times
'A hymn book to the London street' - TLS

'an artful recipe book for that most crucial of human achievements: good cities.' - Alain de Botton

From the Roman marching along the ancient Old Kent Road to the rattling newspaper presses of Fleet Street, from Dickensian iron and fog to the neon lights of the twenty-first century, the game of Monopoly has painted London's story across cheerful coloured tiles.

But those Monopoly streets live and breathe - they open up whole new ways of thinking about our history. The mobs have taken to our streets. The overlords have taken them back. Wars have spilled out into them. Lovers have snuck around them, and fires have raged through them.

In a city of rags and riches, where folk hero Dick Whittington believed the streets were paved with gold, anything could happen - and everything has.

You may think you know the history of London. You don't. Or at least, not entirely. This is the story of the capital as you've never, quite, heard it before.

Author Bio

Nicholas Boys Smith is a Londoner. He read history at Cambridge where he received a double first and an historical research MPhil with distinction. After an international career with McKinsey & Co and in finance, he founded and now runs the London-based social enterprise Create Streets. He has served as a Commissioner for Historic England and has a host of distinguished academic credentials.He has written for the Spectator, Evening Standard, Times, Sunday Times, Telegraph, The Critic, etc, and been interviewed across TV and radio.