It is a tribute to the longevity and continued relevance of Peter Borsay's The English Urban Renaissance that in 2014 a symposium at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of this seminal book. The volume under review continues that celebration. It comprises six of the symposium papers, including one by Borsay himself, together with an introduction incorporating both the opening remarks and issues raised in the concluding discussion. There are four further chapters broadening the discussion, both geographically and thematically. The overall effect is to demonstrate the continued relevance of Borsay's thesis and the applicability of the basic arguments regarding urban development to different regions and to different times.
A common criticism of edited volumes is that they lack a strong unifying theme. This is clearly not the case here, where the various essays serve to emphasize the range of issues covered by and in some cases omitted from the original book. The original book's key theme was the cultural revival of English provincial towns from the late seventeenth century based on a combination of economic and social forces. In a broad review of the book's antecedents and the debates following its publication, Borsay provides both a critical assessment of his own work and a historiography of the subject in the preceding and subsequent periods. Borsay highlights those areas identified as omissions by himself and his critics. These have subsequently formed areas of study in his own career and that of others. A number are the basis of the contributions to this volume.
Adrian Green considers the role of large town houses in reflecting the political and social standing of the pre-eminent families of particular towns and cities, focusing on north-east England. One of these cities, York, is also the subject of Ann-Marie Akehurst's study. Using a similar approach to that taken by Borsay in respect of Warwick, she characterizes York as a city transformed into England's northern social capital by its neo-classical architecture and literary emphasis on its Roman past. The city was consciously promoted as a tourist destination mirroring the nation's history. Akehurst reflects the debate stemming from Borsay's work about the growth of leisure towns. This theme is also taken up by Rose McCormack whose evidence for the pastimes and sporting activities of leisured women in Bath and Tunbridge Wells overturns the view that respectable women only took up sporting activity in the late nineteenth century. Gender history is another area which Borsay himself acknowledges was a major omission from The English Urban Renaissance.
A study of the Sherborne Mercury by Jonathan Barry and George Tatham addresses the themes of commercial and cultural development as the twin drivers of this important provincial newspaper which balanced regional interests with national and international news sourced largely from London. Apart from this chapter and Adrian Green's passing reference to the contrast between the housing of the political and social elites in provincial towns and those in London, there is little mention of the capital. Similarly, chapters on the development of Scottish and Irish towns omit Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin and Belfast. Whilst understandable, this does give an unbalanced picture. Borsay himself acknowledges this in his own chapter. Writing about the omission of London from the original book, he attributes this largely to London's researchers tending to ignore developments beyond the capital. However, there is also an unfortunate tendency for provincial researchers to avoid ‘the infernal wen’. More positively, the collection does provide comparison with urban development elsewhere. In addition to the chapters dealing with Scottish and Irish towns, there is also an interesting comparison of the flowering of English provincial towns with Amsterdam's earlier seventeenth-century regeneration and a particularly illuminating discussion of the relevance of Borsay's ideas to Hungary's urbanization in the nineteenth century. The final chapter covers the contrasting ideas informing the planned but unbuilt city of Azilia in North America.
The weaknesses of the book are common to such collections. Each paper leaves you wanting more; a feeling reinforced by the minimal discussion of the commonality and contrasts between the various regions considered. The great strength of the book is in largely moving away from the constraints of labelling towns to look at the process of urbanization more broadly. It should also achieve the other aim of the editors: the stimulation of further research in the topics raised. Overall, the book provides an extremely useful guide both to the historiography of the English provincial town of the period and to the development of urban studies since Borsay's original publication. The introduction and Borsay's own essay alone are compelling reasons to read the book.
