Urban Redevelopment and Modernity in Liverpool and Manchester, 1918-1939

Description

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Manchester University. Faced with economic decline, unprecedented levels of unemployment and new forms of political extremism during Britain's last great economic crash, politicians and planners in Liverpool and Manchester responded by investing in dramatic and ambitious programmes of urban regeneration. Urban Redevelopment and Modernity in Liverpool and Manchester, 1918-1939 is the first book to provide the hitherto unknown story of the innovative transformation of these cities. Charlotte Wildman challenges academic scholarship in British history, which associates the post-1918 period with the emasculation of local government and the decline of civic culture. She shows that local politicians, planners, architects, businessmen and even religious leaders embraced innovative trends in creating distinct forms of urban modernities, which particularly changed the way women experienced the transformed city. Urban Redevelopment and Modernity in Liverpool and Manchester, 1918-1939 offers a complex, interactive and multipolar interpretation of the ways cities develop, pointing to new methods and ways of understanding both interwar Britain and urban history more generally. At a time of debate and discussion about devolution and decentralisation of government, this book makes an opportune contribution to debates about urban governance and regionalism in contemporary Britain.

Charlotte Wildman is Lecturer in Modern British History, University of Manchester, UK.

This highly impressive monograph by Charlotte Wildman provides a fresh perspective by focusing on the often neglected interwar period in Liverpool and Manchester ... [There] is no doubt that the study makes an outstanding contribution to the field of urban history, which students and academics will find invaluable for many years to come. * History: Reviews of New Books * Charlotte Wildman is to be congratulated for taking on the complexity of the modern city and demonstrating so many intriguing ways forward in studying it. * Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire * This is a clear, convincing account of the interwar period which engages with a number of important discussions in twentieth-century British history. It should be read by all historians of twentieth-century Britain, particularly those working on the interwar period or with an interest in gender, religion, modernity, and political cultures. * Twentieth Century British History * Charlotte Wildman's excellent Urban Redevelopment and Modernity in Liverpool and Manchester, 1918-1939 challenges these images by placing the female shopper at the heart of the new city centres of the urban north. * Economic History Review * [A] significant contribution to modern urban history, and to the study of gender, consumer culture, and religion. It is also a timely one: many of the themes that Wildman brings to the surface have more recently acquired a new significance. * Planning Perspectives * [A] fine debut monograph ... It is in the conjunction of redevelopment and urban culture that the book's real strengths lie ... The study thus presents a convincing reassessment of inter-war cities that does much to add to our understandings of the development of urban cultures and identities with the framework of distinctly local modernities. * Urban History * It is a compelling narrative, demonstrating the weaknesses of a long-held idea of municipal decline after the First World War as many of the functions of local government became increasingly 'nationalised' ... [It] makes an important intervention in a number of historiographical debates, reflecting its shifting focus on civic culture, consumption, gender and religion. * Contemporary British History * The major strength of the book lies in its assembling of diverse ranges of archival sources including film and images along with traditional documentary material. Consequently, a rounded view of the wider culture associated with civic pride and urban regeneration is provided in a compelling narrative. * Architectural History * Wildman should be praised for her careful revisionism and fresh approach to the interwar history of England's northern cities ... The book contains useful figures and illustrations ... Overall, then, this is a very useful monograph, well executed. * Journal of Modern History *