Gillian Tindall
Model Settlements
Dreamstreets: A Journey through Britain’s Village Utopias
By Jacqueline Yallop
Jonathan Cape 218pp £18.99
The planned ideal habitat, whether it is intended to display power, to house the wretched or to fulfil a personal vision about what life should be, is not confined to Britain. From this book, the title of which explicitly excludes the rest of the world, you might suppose that it is, despite Jacqueline Yallop’s undoubted wide-ranging historical knowledge. Her strength is that her focus on particular examples of model villages leads her into interesting general reflections on the march of history and the connections between specific places and science, engineering, fashion, religion, imperialism, politics and social evolution. The main weakness of Dreamstreets is her self-regarding chattiness about her own transient experience of different places at particular moments.
There is much here to enjoy and value. Starting in Cromford, Derbyshire, which was built as a mill settlement early in the Industrial Revolution by the mechanic turned country gentleman Richard Arkwright, we rapidly reach a discussion of the coming of complex water-powered machinery in place of the traditional mill wheel. As the author says, the idea of using water to spin cotton, which now ‘has the sepia hint of heritage about it’, was then revolutionary. Indeed, what now may seem
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk