Tristram Hunt

From one of Britain’s leading historians and the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, a scintillating biography of Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated eighteenth-century potter, entrepreneur, and abolitionist Wedgwood pottery, such as the celebrated blue of Jasperware, is famous worldwide. Jane Austen bought it, and wrote of it in her novels; Empress Catherine II of Russia ordered hundreds of pieces for her palace; British diplomats hauled it with them on their first-ever mission to Peking, audaciously planning to impress China with their china. But the life of Josiah Wedgwood is far richer than just his accomplishments in ceramics. He was a leader of the Industrial Revolution, a pioneering businessman, a tireless scientific experimenter, a cultural tastemaker, and an ardent abolitionist. And he did it all in the face of chronic disability and relentless pain: a childhood bout with smallpox eventually led to the amputation of his right leg. As acclaimed historian Tristram Hunt puts it in this lively, vivid biography, Wedgwood was the Steve Jobs of the eighteenth century: a difficult, brilliant, creative entrepreneur who personal drive and extraordinary gifts changed the way we work and live. Drawing on a rich array of letters, journals, and historical documents, Tycoon of Taste brings us the story a singular man, his dazzling contributions to design and innovation, and his remarkable global impact.

The Life and Times of Josiah Wedgwood

The Radical Potter

Friedrich Engels

Discusses private property and its relationship to the subjugation of women and analyzes the rise of the territorial state, in a new edition of a classic work of 19th-century socialist thought. Reissue.

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi, and twentieth-century Liverpool: since the end days of Empire, Britain's colonial past has been the subject of passionate debate. Tristram Hunt goes beyond the familiar arguments about Empire being good or bad and adopts a new approach, describing the processes of exchange and adaptation that moulded the colonial experience and that, in their turn, transformed the culture, economy and identity of the British Isles. 'Ingenious and timely, a lively and cliché-busting survey of imperial history.' Maya Jasanoff, Guardian 'It captures a vast, sprawling enterprise so very well. This work, like the empire it describes, is something unique.' Paul Kennedy, Financial Times 'Lively, original, a cracking read.' Robert Service, Observer 'Rethinks the whole history of colonialism. From Boston to Liverpool, via Dublin, Calcutta and others, Hunt weaves a colourful account of trade and slavery, violence and aesthetic splendour.' Sinclair McKay, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 'Enthralling, superb . . . as Hunt shows in compelling tours of ten cities, whether the colonial past is celebrated or restored, ignored or eradicated, the legacy of the British Empire is indelibly stamped on the urban fabric.' Ben Wilson, Daily Telegraph

Ten Cities That Made an Empire

A remarkable new biography from one of Britain's leading young historians, "Marx's General" recovers the co-founder of Communism, Friedrich Engels, from the shadows of history and restores this major figure to full importance.

The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels

Marx's General

La vita rivoluzionaria di Friedrich Engels

From one of Britain’s leading historians and the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, a scintillating biography of Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated eighteenth-century potter, entrepreneur, and abolitionist Wedgwood’s pottery, such as his celebrated light-blue jasperware, is famous worldwide. Jane Austen bought it and wrote of it in her novels; Empress Catherine II of Russia ordered hundreds of pieces for her palace; British diplomats hauled it with them on their first-ever mission to Peking, audaciously planning to impress China with their china. But the life of Josiah Wedgwood is far richer than just his accomplishments in ceramics. He was a leader of the Industrial Revolution, a pioneering businessman, a cultural tastemaker, and a tireless scientific experimenter whose inventions made him a fellow of the Royal Society. He was also an ardent abolitionist, whose Emancipation Badge medallion—depicting an enslaved African and inscribed “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?”—became the most popular symbol of the antislavery movement on both sides of the Atlantic. And he did it all in the face of chronic disability and relentless pain: a childhood bout with smallpox eventually led to the amputation of his right leg. As historian Tristram Hunt puts it in this lively, vivid biography, Wedgwood was the Steve Jobs of the eighteenth century: a difficult, brilliant, creative figure whose personal drive and extraordinary gifts changed the way we work and live. Drawing on a rich array of letters, journals, and historical documents, The Radical Potter brings us the story of a singular man, his dazzling contributions to design and innovation, and his remarkable global impact.

A remarkable new biography from one of Britain's leading young historians that recovers the co-founder of communism from the shadows of history, portraying how one of the great "bon viveurs" of Victorian Britain reconciled his exuberant personal life with his radical political philosophy.

FRIEDRICH ENGELS is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family in west Germany, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, and enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman. Yet Engels was also the co-founder of international communism - the philosophy which in the twentieth century came to control one third of the human race. He was the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, a ruthless party tactician, and the man who sacrificed his best years so Karl Marx could write Das Kapital. His searing account of the industrial revolution, The Condition of the Working Class in England, remains one of the most haunting and brutal indictments of the human costs of capitalism. Far more than Marx's right-hand man, Engels was a profound thinker in his own right - on warfare, feminism, urbanism, Darwinism, technology and colonialism. With fierce prescience, he predicted the social effects of today's free-market fundamentalism and unstoppable globalization. Tristram Hunt relishes the diversity and exuberance of Engels's era- how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his raucous personal life with this uncompromising political philosophy. Set against the backdrop of revolutionary Europe and industrializing England - of Manchester mills, Paris barricades, and East End strikes - it is a story of devoted friendship, class compromise, ideological struggle, and family betrayal. And Hunt tackles head-on the question of Engels' legacy- was Engels, after Marx's death, responsible for some of the most horrible turns of twentieth-century history, or was the idealism of his thought perverted by those who claimed to be his followers? The Frock-Coated Communist combines history and ideas in an exceptionally enjoyable biography which at last brings Engels out from the shadow of his famous friend and collaborator.

The Frock-coated Communist

A history of the colonial creation of the city is told through the stories of 10 influential urban centers left in the wake of the British Empire, drawing on historical scholarship, cultural criticism and personal reportage to trace the rise of such cities as Boston, Hong Kong and New Delhi.

The British Colonies and the Creation of the Urban World

Cities of Empire

"Written with brio, warmth, and historical understanding, this is the best biography of one of the most attractive inhabitants of Victorian England, Marx's friend, partner, and political heir."—Eric Hobsbawm Friedrich Engels is one of the most intriguing and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family, he spent his life enjoying the comfortable existence of a Victorian gentleman; yet he was at the same time the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, a ruthless political tactician, and the man who sacrificed his best years so that Karl Marx could have the freedom to write. Although his contributions are frequently overlooked, Engels's grasp of global capital provided an indispensable foundation for communist doctrine, and his account of the Industrial Revolution, The Condition of the Working Class in England, remains one of the most haunting and brutal indictments of capitalism's human cost. Drawing on a wealth of letters and archives, acclaimed historian Tristram Hunt plumbs Engels's intellectual legacy and shows us how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his exuberant personal life with his radical political philosophy. This epic story of devoted friendship, class compromise, ideological struggle, and family betrayal at last brings Engels out from the shadow of his famous friend and collaborator.

Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family in west Germany, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, and enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman. Yet Engels was also the co-founder of international communism - the philosophy which in the 20th century came to control one third of the human race. He was the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, a ruthless party tactician, and the man who sacrificed his best years so Karl Marx could write Das Kapital. Tristram Hunt relishes the diversity and exuberance of Engels's era: how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his raucous personal life with this uncompromising political philosophy. Set against the backdrop of revolutionary Europe and industrializing England - of Manchester mills, Paris barricades, and East End strikes - it is a story of devoted friendship, class compromise, ideological struggle, and family betrayal.

The Frock-Coated Communist

'History writing at its compulsive best' A. N. Wilson This is a history of the ideas that shaped not only London, but Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield and other power-houses of 19th-century Britain. It charts the controversies and visions that fostered Britain's greatest civic renaissance. Tristram Hunt explores the horrors of the Victorian city, as seen by Dickens, Engels and Carlyle; the influence of the medieval Gothic ideal of faith, community and order espoused by Pugin and Ruskin; the pride in self-government, identified with the Saxons as opposed to the Normans; the identification with the city republics of the Italian renaissance - commerce, trade and patronage; the change from the civic to the municipal, and greater powers over health, education and housing; and finally at the end of the century, the retreat from the urban to the rural ideal, led by William Morris and the garden-city movement of Ebenezer Howard.

The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City

Building Jerusalem

'They ran through the streets with their drawn swords, cutting and slashing those men they met with, whether soldiers or not.' This is the story of the bloodiest conflict in British history, told through the accounts of those who witnessed it. The English Civil War killed almost a quarter of a million people, divided families and laid waste to the land. It saw a king executed, a military dictatorship established in England, brutal clan warfare in Scotland and sectarianism in Ireland. Yet it also transformed English society, gave birth to new ideas about political liberty and religious freedom, and created a rich culture of letters, satire, oratory and propaganda. Tristram Hunt's vivid history draws on Cromwell's correspondence, Levellers' tracts, bawdy songs, a Cavalier officer's journal and a Roundhead wife's memoir, among many others, to resurrect the lost voices from a time when the world was turned upside down. 'One of the most appealing things about Hunt's style is that he makes complicated ideas accessible.' Sunday Telegraph 'Hunt has an infectious enthusiasm which brings his subject to life, an eye for detail and biographical anecdote, and a racy, readable style.' Literary Review

Tristram Hunt

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