Capital Histories

First published in 1998, this book reprints eight articles from The London Journal, covering the history of London from the middle ages to the twentieth century. Each is an extensive bibliographical essay, updated by the individual contributors for this anthology. The book comes with a new introduction from a previous editor of the journal, Patricia Garside, and also with a specially commissioned guide to sources for London history and the libraries and special collections that house them. The London Journal was founded in 1975 to provide a forum for the study of London history: an eclectic and multi-disciplinary field. As well as articles based on original research, The London Journal has carried notes and comments, viewpoint and review articles, and general surveys of particular aspects of London life. In the past few decades the specialist literature on London has become extensive, intricate and dense. The opportunity for a systematic review of this literature presented itself on the twentieth anniversary of the founding of The London Journal, and the core of the work presented here first appeared in Volume 20(2), November 1995. Each of the authors, specialists in one of seven periods from Roman to contemporary times, was asked to evaluate the literature that had appeared in their field of London expertise during the last 20 years. For this book, each contribution has been updated where possible to take account of the very latest publications.