One of Britain's leading young historians, this author focuses on social and political history. Their work explores the relationship between ideologies and urban development, often highlighting the impact of significant individuals on societal shifts. Writing engagingly about the formation of modern society, their work emphasizes understanding the historical forces that shape it.
This monograph highlights the work of English artist Bryan Organ, known for his portraits of figures like Princess Diana, Elton John, and Charles III. Featuring around 80 large-format portraits, sketches, and various artworks, it includes insightful texts from prominent British authors, filling a notable gap in art literature.
Josiah Wedgwood, perhaps the greatest English potter who ever lived, epitomized the best of his age. From his kilns and workshops in Stoke-on-Trent, he revolutionized the production of ceramics in Georgian Britain by marrying technology with design, manufacturing efficiency and retail flair. He transformed the luxury markets not only of London, Liverpool, Bath and Dublin but of America and the world, and helping to usher in a mass consumer society. Tristram Hunt calls him 'the Steve Jobs of the eighteenth century'. But Wedgwood was radical in his mind and politics as well as in his designs. He campaigned for free trade and religious toleration, read pioneering papers to the Royal Society and was a member of the celebrated Lunar Society of Birmingham. Most significantly, he created the ceramic 'Emancipation Badge', depicting a slave in chains and inscribed 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' that became the symbol of the abolitionist movement. Tristram Hunt's hugely enjoyable new biography, strongly based on Wedgwood's notebooks, letters and the words of his contemporaries, brilliantly captures the energy and originality of Wedgwood and his extraordinary contribution to the transformation of eighteenth-century Britain.
Presents an approach to Britain's imperial past through the cities that epitomised it. This book examines the stories and defining ideas of ten of the important: Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi, and twentieth-century Liverpool
A remarkable new biography from one of Britain's leading young historians that recovers the co-founder of communism from the shadows of history, portraying how one of the great "bon viveurs" of Victorian Britain reconciled his exuberant personal life with his radical political philosophy