Título: London: A History
Autor: A.N. Wilson
Sinopse: In its two thousand years of history, London has ruled a rainy island and a globe-spanning empire, it has endured plague and fire and bombing, it has nurtured and destroyed poets and kings, revolutionaries and financiers, geniuses and visionaries of every stripe. To distill the magic and the majesty of this infinitely enthralling city into a single brief volume would seem an impossible task–yet acclaimed biographer and novelist A. N. Wilson brilliantly accomplishes it in London: A History. Founded by the Romans, London was a flourishing provincial capital before falling into ruin with the rest of the Roman Empire. Centuries passed before the city rose to prominence once again when William the Conqueror chose to be crowned king in Westminster Abbey. In Chaucer’s day, London Bridge opened the way for expansion over the Thames. By the time Shakespeare’s plays were being mounted at the Globe, London was a dense, seething, and explosively growing metropolis–a city of brothels and taverns and delicate new palaces and pleasure gardens. With deftly sketched vignettes and memorable portraits in miniature, Wilson conjures up the essence of London through the ages–high finance and gambling during the Georgian age, John Nash’s stunning urban makeover at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the waves of building and immigration that transformed London beyond recognition during the reign of Queen Victoria, the devastation of the two world wars, the painful and corrupt postwar rebuilding effort, and finally the glamorous, polyglot, expensive, and sometimes ridiculous London of today. Every age had its heroes and villains, from church builder Christopher Wren to jail breaker Jack Sheppard, from urbane wit Samuel Johnson to wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, and Wilson places each one in the drama of London’s history. Exuberant, opinionated, surprising, often funny, A. N. Wilson’s London is the perfect match of author and subject. In a one short irresistible volume, Wilson gives us the essence of the people, the architecture, the intrigue, the art and literature and history that make London one of the most fascinating cities in the world.
Contexto da obra
Quando a classificação é mais ampla, o contexto do livro costuma depender ainda mais de autoria, tema e edição. “London: A History”, de A.N. Wilson, publicado pela editora Modern Library, em 2006 e com 240 páginas, integra a categoria Livros Variados. Por isso, autoria, edição e tema acabam tendo ainda mais peso na forma de apresentar o livro.
Editora: Modern Library
Páginas: 240
Ano: 2006
Edição: Reprint
Linguagem: pt_BR
ISBN: 9780812975567
ISBN13: 9780812975567
Sobre a editora
A leitura dos livros da editora Modern Library costuma oferecer uma experiência que mescla narrativas densas e reflexivas com retratos históricos e literários de grande fôlego. O catálogo revela uma predileção por obras que exploram tanto a intimidade da condição humana, como poemas e romances de caráter psicológico, quanto relatos detalhados de eventos históricos, como batalhas e conflitos globais. Há uma constante atenção à complexidade das personagens e ao contexto social, seja em romances que discutem papéis femininos e lutas pessoais, seja em biografias e ensaios que iluminam momentos cruciais da história mundial. O tom varia entre o contemplativo e o dramático, com ritmo que ora privilegia o detalhamento minucioso, ora a narrativa envolvente, sem abrir mão da profundidade.
