ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher
A riveting chronicle of the four decades that defined contemporary London
Workers on the Silent Highway, a photograph from Street Life in London, 1877, by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith’ The best-known of the LCC’s Arts and Crafts fire stations, job architect HFT Cooper, 1901–2, still in service
[(L to R) Wikipedia/Public domain/courtesy Andrew Saint] 
ALEX HALL is frustrated by a book that ducks a clear definition of terrorism and fails to perceive the role of the state in sponsoring it
JOE GILL wholeheartedly recommends an eloquent manifesto: how to change the world one local project at a time
Inspired by a photograph, a unique memorial in Michigan immortalises US true labour heroes. MICHAL BONCZA recalls a great story rarely told
MARIA DUARTE, LEO BOIX and ANGUS REID review Brides, Dead of Winter, A Night Like This, and The Librarians
MARIA DUARTE is entertained by a wry portrait of befuddled resistance to US authoritarianism
London 1870-1910: City at its Zenith
by Andrew Saint
Lund and Humphries £24.43
THIS intriguing, informative, richly illustrated and engagingly written volume covers 40 years of a city living a epochal change, from the completion of the Joseph Bazalgette’s outfall sewers, switching London Underground to electric propulsion, the growth of trade unionism, birth of social democracy and … the first all-weather ice rinks made possible using a novel mixture of glycerine and water.
In a curious, and perhaps telling, coincidence, the period addressed is equivalent to the average lifespan for the time of just 41.8 years.
The agricultural depression meant that many sought refuge in London where overcrowding and poor sanitation caused much premature death.
More from this author
Inspired by a photograph, a unique memorial in Michigan immortalises US true labour heroes. MICHAL BONCZA recalls a great story rarely told
MICHAL BONCZA highly recommends a revelatory exhibition of work by the doyen of indigenous Australians’ art, Emily Kam Kngwarray
Despite an over-sentimental narrative, MICHAL BONCZA applauds an ambitious drama about the Chinese rescue of British POWs in WWII
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
