London Revisited
Podcast

London Revisited

London Review of Books

11 episodes

From its beginnings as a backwater of the Roman Empire to its heyday at the heart of the British Empire and up to the eve of the Great War, Rosemary Hill charts London’s history through waves of expansion and contraction with the help of historians, antiquaries and archaeologists. London's past is everywhere beneath its streets, in the geology and archeology of its deep and ancient history, and in its mythic lives, in William Blake's Albion and Cobbett's 'Great Wen', the home of Dick Whittington and King Lud. This will be the London described by Tacitus, Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf, a city shaped by Boudicca, Christopher Wren and Joseph Bazalgette, and a story of countless disasters, recoveries and triumphs unfolding over more than 2,000 years. Rosemary Hill is a writer, historian and contributor to the London Review of Books. Her books include ‘God's Architect', 'Stonehenge' and ‘Time’s Witness: History in the Age of Romanticism’. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applesignuplr Other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/scsignuplr Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

What this show covers

Urban history18th-century Londonconsumer cultureDavid GarrickSamuel Johnsonthe novelShakespeareElizabethan LondonTrade and empireThe Globe TheatreChristopher WrenGreat Fire of LondonSamuel PepysRestoration LondonGreat Plague

What listeners will find here

18th-century London as a brutal, glittering ‘monster’
Eighteenth-century London is the subject here: a city of migration, consumption, cultural invention and ruin. Rosemary Hill and Markman Ellis explore how the capital could be both deadly and exhilarating, from gin-soaked despair to pleasure gardens, shops and the rise of the novel.
Elizabethan London beyond the stage: trade, maps and the world around Shakespeare
Elizabethan London comes into focus as a city transformed by theatre, mapping, history-writing and trade. Rosemary and Vanessa Harding explore why Shakespeare’s world flourished, from the Globe’s lively culture to the Royal Exchange and the forces reshaping the capital.
Restoration London through plague, fire and Pepys’s watchful eye
Restoration London is the focus here, from the monarchy’s return in 1660 to plague, the Great Fire and the city rebuilt afterward. Rosemary and Vanessa Harding connect social change, Samuel Pepys, Christopher Wren and the political tensions of the 1680s.
How Tudor London became a Protestant capital
Tudor London is the focus here, from its late medieval Catholic world to a commercially expanding and fiercely contested Protestant city. Rosemary and historian Vanessa Harding trace how the Reformation transformed religion, property, power and public life under Henry VIII and Mary I.
How Stuart London moved from royal promise to civil war
This episode follows London from James VI and I’s arrival in 1603 to the civil war that ended with Charles I’s execution at Whitehall. It connects court culture, print, religion and architecture to show how the Stuart settlement unraveled.

Episodes

More like London Revisited