London; 2000 Years of a City and Its People ( Felix Barker, Peter Jackson)

This beautifully illustrated book is the history of the world's greatest city and its people. It traces the development of London through the ages: the first rough dwellings on the Thames marshes in the first century A.D.; the city of the Norman Kings, the guilds and the Tudors; the London of Wren, the great Regency developers and the stately Victorians; and the sprawling, many-faced city of today. Here is the cast, unique pageant of London's life: from the great Royal occasions to the tragedies of fire and plague; from the conspiracies ad rebellions to fairs and pleasure gardens. And here is the life of the city through the eyes of contempoary writers, artists, actors and musicians, recording, applauding and sometimes despairing of the London they knew. With almost 1000 illustrations, many of them never reproduced before, this definitive history of London is now available in paperback for the first time.