London : water and the making of the modern city / John Broich.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Broich, John, author.

Series:

History of the urban environment.

History of the Urban Environment

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Water resources development--England--London--History.

Water resources development.

Water-supply--England--London--History.

Water-supply.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (231 pages) : illustrations, map.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

As people crowded into British cities in the nineteenth century, industrial and biological waste byproducts and then epidemic followed them. Britons died by the thousands in recurring plagues. Figures like Edwin Chadwick and John Snow pleaded for measures that could save lives and preserve the social fabric. The solution that prevailed was the novel idea that British towns must build public water supplies, replacing private companies. But the idea was not an obvious or inevitable one. Those who promoted new waterworks argued that they could use water to realize a new kind of British society-a productive social machine, a new moral community, and a modern civilization. They did not merely cite the dangers of epidemic or scarcity. Despite many debates and conflicts, this vision won out-in town after town, from Birmingham to Liverpool to Edinburgh, authorities gained new powers to execute municipal water systems.But in London local government responded to environmental pressures with a plan intended to help remake the metropolis into a collectivist society. The Conservative national government, in turn, sought to impose a water administration over the region that would achieve its own competing political and social goals. The contestants over London's water supply matched divergent strategies for administering London's water with contending visions of modern society. And the matter was never pedestrian. The struggle over these visions was joined by some of the most colorful figures of the late Victorian period, including John Burns, Lord Salisbury, Bernard Shaw, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.As Broich demonstrates, the debate over how to supply London with water came to a head when the climate itself forced the endgame near the end of the nineteenth century. At that decisive moment, the Conservative party succeeded in dictating the relationship between water, power, and society in London for many decades to come.

Contents:

Water and the making of the modern British city

Great expectations: the first efforts to reform London with water

"Communism in water": a strategy for harnessing water to reshape late Victorian London society

From engineering modernization to engineering collectivization

An alternative vision of the modern city, an alternative government of water.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822978664

0822978660

OCLC:

859687385