Richard reviewed on
Helpful Score: 1
For me the thing I will go away with is how long this book is. 1126 pages of one author's view of the city of London. Starting in the age of the glaciers and ending in 1997 is a long time. I was enlightened about some trivia from English history but I was disappointed that with so many pages and so many years so little was given to the real diversity of a huge sea port. I was looking for there to be a more expansive account of the people from everywhere and what they brought to London. The focus remained very inward and domestic. The main goal of every character seemed to marry and breed. Perhaps it was the device of following a number of families and their various incarnations in differing time periods. This model became predictable and lost its appeal in over a thousand pages. I great city is a stage for so much more than the quest to survive in one the same model with new costumes. It seemed to me this took a long time to cover a major gate way of people and ideas in a very controlled tour with as little dash as possible
