A new book by Dr Malcolm Dick and Professor Carl Chinn.
- The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Birmingham in forty years.
- The first book to cover the history of the Birmingham area from prehistoric times to the twenty-first century.
- Visually stunning with over 200 images, some of which have never been published before.
- Emphasising the importance of all of the people of Birmingham in its rise from an insignificant place in the later Middle Ages to the workshop of the world.
Birmingham is a city with an extraordinarily diverse achievement in fields as varied as science, industry, politics, education, medicine, printing and the arts. This new publication, the first major history of Birmingham since the 1970s, is published to commemorate the 850th anniversary of Birmingham’s market charter in 1166, an event which marked the first step in the rise of Birmingham as a commercial and industrial powerhouse.
Authored by scholars, but written for a general readership, this detailed, accessible and richly illustrated book is both a definitive reference work and a readable account of a diverse, culturally rich and high-achieving city. Many aspects of the history of Birmingham are presented for the first time outside of academic publications: its diverse people’s history, a rich prehistoric and Roman past, the rise of Birmingham in medieval and early modern times, the evolution of an innovative system of education, a varied experience in art and design and an extraordinary printing history.
The result is a visually stunning and factually illuminating book which will appeal to many kinds of people.