Coherence and Cacophony: Architecture and Interdisciplinarity in Studies of Early Modern London

Kimberley Skelton

doi:10.5334/ah.cp

Abstract

Review of: Dana Arnold, The Spaces of the Hospital: Spatiality and Urban Change in London 1680–1820 (New York: Routledge, 2013); Elizabeth McKellar, Landscapes of London: The City, the Country and the Suburbs 1660–1840 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013); Christine Stevenson, The City and the King: Architecture and Politics in Restoration London (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013).

Highlights

There was seemingly no way to comprehend and so navigate such visual, aural, and social confusion
Skelton: Coherence and Cacophony between the Crown and the City of London under Charles II, from his return in 1660 to the monarchy’s assumption of unchallenged authority in 1683. This political struggle was longstanding, but it intensified during the reign of Charles II, who reinstated royal authority after two decades of monarchical absence
Where Stevenson focuses on political tensions in the heart of the capital, McKellar turns to a social history of the suburbs

Summary

Introduction

There was seemingly no way to comprehend and so navigate such visual, aural, and social confusion. The first two chapters set out the broad cultural context for these questions, studying especially how mid-seventeenth-century Londoners would have expected meaning to be conveyed through architecture.

Results

Conclusion