Demographically, nineteenth-century London, or what Victorians called the “new Rome,” first equaled, then superseded its ancient ancestor. By the mid-eighteenth century, the British capital had already developed into a global city. Sustained by its enormous empire, between 1800 and the First World War London ballooned in population and land area. Nothing so vast had previously existed anywhere.A Mighty Capital under Threatinvestigates the environmental history of one of the world’s global cities and the largest city in the United Kingdom. Contributors cover the feeding of London, waste management, movement between the city’s numerous districts, and the making and shaping of the environmental sciences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
“This impressive volume brings together leading historians to explore the latest approaches to urban-environmental history, as applied to nineteenth- and twentieth-century London. . . . When surveying such instances of progression and regression, a reader can’t help but feel the press of time in a moment that demands collective action toward a more sustainable—and promising—environmental future for London.” —
H-Net Reviews “Environmental histories of major cities have never been timelier. In
A Mighty Capital under Threat: The Environmental History of London, 1800–2000, Bill Luckin and Peter Thorsheim have assembled an impressive team of established scholars—four from Britain, four from the United States, and two from Canada—under a title that promises relevance to debates about threats to cities today as well as in the past.” —
Victorian Studies"A Mighty Capital under Threat is a wonderful achievement. Luckin and Thorsheim have assembled a formidable cast of historians to explore how the nineteenth century's largest city dealt with an array oflă
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