The English Town: A History of Urban Life - Hardcover

Girouard, Mr. Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300046359 ISBN 13: 9780300046359

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1990

Synopsis

Traces the development of English city life from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century through characteristic buildings and sites such as markets, assembly rooms, streets, and factories

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

A feast for Anglophiles, this gorgeously illustrated tour of England's towns makes a splendid contribution to social and architectural history. Girouard ( Life in the English Country House ) explains how the multitudinous small, separate plots of the medieval town still condition the variegated plan and appearance of towns throughout the country. Innumerable streets, quays and marketplaces follow medieval models. Georgian towns introduced a new vastness of scale, with public walks and planted squares, assembly halls, mills and docks. Even as Enlightenment-influenced planners made towns more geometric, parks and open spaces interpenetrated with buildings. Decked out with paintings, drawings and photographs, this panorama reveals what is distinctively English about the towns explored. History Book Club and Readers' Subscription Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Long interested in the historical development of agricultural towns, cathedral cities, mill villages, and resort spas, Girouard brings to life the richness and fascination of English towns in this handsomely designed and beautifully illustrated study. While the origins and evolution of features that comprise places--the town hall, warehouses, terraces and squares, backstreets and alleys, parks, and marketplaces--are described in separate chapters, one has the sense of the whole being greater than the sum of the individual parts. Girouard's scholarship and extensive knowledge, augmented by extensive paintings, drawings, plans, and photographs, combine to create an unforgettable portrait of an endangered species: the English town.
- H. Ward Jandl, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0300046359
• ISBN 13: 9780300046359
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340