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This is a coherent and integrated set of essays around the theme of
governance addressing a wide range of questions on the organisation
and legitimation of authority. At the heart of the book is a set of
topics which have long attracted the attention of urbanists and
urban historians all over the world: the growth and reform of urban
local government, local-centre relationships, public health and
pollution, local government finance, the nature of local social
elites and of participation in local government. Approaching these
topics through the concept of governance not only raises a series
of new questions but also extends the scope of enquiry for the
historian seeking to understand towns and cities all over the world
in a period of rapid change. Questions of governance must be
central to a variety of enquiries into the nature of the urban
place. There are questions about the setting of agendas, about when
a localised or neighbourhood issue becomes a big city or even
national political issue, about what makes a 'problem'. Public
health and related matters form a central part of the 'issues'
especially for the British; in North America fire and the
development of urban real estate have dominated; in India the
security of the colonial government had a prominent place. The
historical dynamic of these essays follows the change from the
chartered governments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
towards the representative regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth.
However, such historical change is not regarded as inevitable, and
the effects of bureaucratic growth, regulatory regimes, the
legitimating role of rational and scientific knowledge as well as
the innovatory use of ritual and space are all dealt with at
length.
This is a coherent and integrated set of essays around the theme of
governance addressing a wide range of questions on the organisation
and legitimation of authority. At the heart of the book is a set of
topics which have long attracted the attention of urbanists and
urban historians all over the world: the growth and reform of urban
local government, local-centre relationships, public health and
pollution, local government finance, the nature of local social
elites and of participation in local government. Approaching these
topics through the concept of governance not only raises a series
of new questions but also extends the scope of enquiry for the
historian seeking to understand towns and cities all over the world
in a period of rapid change. Questions of governance must be
central to a variety of enquiries into the nature of the urban
place. There are questions about the setting of agendas, about when
a localised or neighbourhood issue becomes a big city or even
national political issue, about what makes a 'problem'. Public
health and related matters form a central part of the 'issues'
especially for the British; in North America fire and the
development of urban real estate have dominated; in India the
security of the colonial government had a prominent place. The
historical dynamic of these essays follows the change from the
chartered governments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
towards the representative regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth.
However, such historical change is not regarded as inevitable, and
the effects of bureaucratic growth, regulatory regimes, the
legitimating role of rational and scientific knowledge as well as
the innovatory use of ritual and space are all dealt with at
length.
Black Country Elites is a study of the people who ran Victorian
industrial towns; it also examines the institutions, policies,
rituals, and networks these urban elites deployed to cope with
urban growth, social unrest, and relative economic decline.
Concentrating on a particularly grimy district of the industrial
Midlands, the book demonstrates the surprisingly great resources,
coherence, sophistication, and impact of the area's mainly
middle-class leaders, who were well linked to regional and national
power centres. Richard H. Trainor's extensively researched and
richly documented analysis suggests the need to re-examine the
influential view that Victorian Britain's social development was
dominated by London and by land, the professions, and finance.
Instead he indicates the complex give-and-take between the
metropolis and its notables, on the one hand, and the industrial
provinces and their leaders, on the other. The book is both a
substantial addition to regional studies of Victorian Britain, and
an important contribution to the history of nineteenth-century
elites and of the urban middle class.
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