The Devil’S Highway

Urban Anxieties and Subaltern Cultures in London’s Sailortown, C.1850-1900

Brad Beaven author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Manchester University Press

Publishing:14th Jan '25

£85.00

This title is due to be published on 14th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

The Devil’S Highway cover

Between 1850 and 1900, Ratcliffe Highway was the pulse of maritime London. Sailors from every corner of the globe found solace, and sometimes trouble, in this bustling district. However, for social investigators, it was a place of fascination and fear as it harboured chaotic and dangerous ‘exotic’ communities. Sailortowns were transient, cosmopolitan and working class in character and provide us with an insight into class, race and gendered relations. They were contact zones of heightened interaction where multi-ethnic subaltern cultures met, sometimes negotiated and at other times clashed with one another. The book argues that despite these challenges sailortown was a distinctive and functional working-class community that was self-regulating and self-moderating. The book uncovers a robust sailortown community in which an urban-maritime culture shaped a sense of themselves and the traditions and conventions that governed subaltern behaviour in the district.

ISBN: 9781526177926

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

214 pages