Skip to main content
London’s blighted skyline
Despite its anti-socialist bias, JOHN GREEN recommends a new survey of British architecture that seeks to educate and provoke
JG architecture

A Short History of British Architecture - from Stonehenge to the Shard
Simon Jenkins, Penguin Viking, £26.99

 

SIMON JENKINS is one of our last remaining journalists of the old school – he writes with passion as well as compassion, perceptively and rationally, in a style that combines articulateness, erudition and accessibility. 

Jenkins has been deputy chair of English Heritage and today is chair of the National Trust. Although he is a conservative with a small “c” and despises many of those with a capital “C”, his commentaries are always provocative and apposite. This, his latest book, will enlighten and entertain, as it will undoubtedly annoy some of our more extremist architectural iconoclasts. 

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Liberation webinar, 30 November2024, 6pm (UK)
More from this author
punishment
Books / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
JOHN GREEN recommends an entertaining, if harsh and instructive, study of bullying, discipline and power dynamics in schools and at work
Who
Books / 13 March 2025
13 March 2025
JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
G election
Features / 12 March 2025
12 March 2025
As climate change makes vast mineral deposits accessible, the island’s 56,000 residents face unprecedented pressure from Trump’s territorial ambitions while struggling to maintain their traditional way of life, writes JOHN GREEN
ignorance
Books / 29 January 2025
29 January 2025
JOHN GREEN is dissatisfied with a book that fails to address the promotion of ignorance as a ruling-class strategy to maintain control
Similar stories
Stirling prize
Opinion / 20 August 2024
20 August 2024
While applauding the emphasis on re-use, ROBERT GROVER examines the elitist bias of the prize towards south-east England
brutal. 1
Books / 26 July 2024
26 July 2024
SIAN LEWIS recommends a unique book of photography that invites greater appreciation of our urban and industrial landscapes
china
Venice Biennale 2024 / 13 June 2024
13 June 2024
SIMON DUFF walks us through a fascinating display that is bold, optimistic and spiritual
estates 1
Book Review / 21 May 2024
21 May 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a photographic sojourn around London housing estates that defined post WWII British civic architecture