The urban biography is not a new addition to the urban historian's bookshelf. David Reeder and R.J. Morris have written in this journal on their positives and negatives. Reeder, in particular, focused on how these biographies were compiled, with academics rubbing shoulders with local historians who were often the main producers of such works.Footnote ¹ The urban biography has changed in the 19 years since Reeder's insightful review, with academics playing a more prominent part in their research and production, but the benefits and pitfalls that Reeder and Morris discuss, however, remain much the same. The three urban biographies reviewed here, on Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester, attempt to present a history of their respective cities’ development from their inception through to the present day. All three are written in the ‘modern style’; multiauthored and edited by prominent academic historians, are aimed at the public as well as the scholar, and all three make important additions to the existing historiography. However, as Morris asked, ‘What is in it for the urban historian who might turn to it as a quarry for wider studies?’Footnote ² The answer to this question varies between collections.

The Manchester collection, edited by Alan Kidd and Terry Wyke and published by Liverpool University Press, provides the least satisfaction to the urban historian, but is by no means without merit. Separated into nine chapters, including an introduction, the book addresses large subjects such as the rise and decline of Manchester as ‘Cottonopolis’, a review of popular politics into the twentieth century, a review of the city's contributions to culture, media and sport and the development of the suburbs in shaping the modern city. A feature of all three books is the amount of illustration included, with many wonderful paintings, photographs and artifacts breaking up the text and, in the case of the Manchester collection, all accompanied with annotations which add to their understanding. As a text for the public and for students, the collection offers a fine overview of Manchester's history. For the urban historian, however, it has less to offer. Its main issue is that the book often falls into place-promotion, continually seeking to highlight Manchester's pioneering role at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. For example, whilst there is a chapter by Michael E. Rose on politics in the city, it focuses more on the experiences of middle- and working-class voices rather than an examination of the governance of the city. Whilst this is important social history, especially the space given to the contributions of women – and, later in the twentieth century, gay voices – to political discourse, it does not provide an examination of the webs of power strung across the city during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which so interest urban historians. However, Brian Robson's chapter on the post-war development of Manchester is a real contribution to the urban historiography. Robson examines the role of both public and private actors in the regeneration of Manchester, highlighting the importance of city councillors in the re-development of the city in a period that has been marked by the decline of local government. Whilst this chapter does not necessarily contradict that assessment, it highlights the continued importance of local government in enacting positive change as powers were increasingly removed. There is information to be gleaned; however, it comes up short of providing an examination of the various facets of the city that interests the urban historian.

The Birmingham collection is also published by Liverpool University Press and written with the support of Birmingham City Council, the University of Birmingham and West Midlands History. A shorter book, 334 pages compared to Kidd and Wyke's 436 pages, it is split into 13 chapters including an introduction. As such, the scope of each chapter is scaled down in comparison to the Manchester collection, but more topics are covered. Whereas the Manchester collection is concerned with reviewing large topics such as industrial success and decline and the history of science, the Birmingham collection has chapters on education in the city, art and architecture, health provision and print culture. This is fitting for Birmingham, as contributions by Carl Chinn, Ruth Watts and Caroline Archer-Parré highlight that these subjects were important in the development of Birmingham both in terms of its urban landscape in the case of printing or its progressive political legacy in the case of education. The Birmingham collection, unlike the other two books under review, provides the most in-depth coverage of the town before the modern period, with three chapters dedicated to prehistoric and Roman Birmingham, medieval Birmingham and Tudor and Stuart Birmingham respectively. This collection, however, is overwhelmingly a social history, concerned more with how the people of Birmingham lived in their city than with the city itself, something that the editors Carl Chinn and Malcolm Dick acknowledge from the start, rightly highlighting that much work concerning Birmingham's urban history has already been completed, notably by the late Asa Briggs. That does not mean, however, that the book ignores the urban landscape. Whilst there is no explicit discussion of themes such as urban governance, planning or urban culture, the contributors look to include the urban into their research. This is again a work that has much appeal to the public and students, and indeed social historians of Birmingham. Like the Manchester collection, there is information to be garnered from it, but again it falls short for the urban historian.

The Leicester collection offers the most to the urban historian, possibly benefiting from the city's smaller stature when compared with Birmingham and Manchester. Indeed, as the editors Richard Rodger and Rebecca Madgin highlight in their preface to the book, ‘the identity of Leicester remains something of a mystery’. Whereas much is already known to urban historians about Manchester and Birmingham through previous works, Leicester is more unknown, despite being home to the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester. It is the connection between urban history and Leicester that really stands out in this book, with many of the book's 16 chapters written by historians who have passed through the Centre at one point or another. Whilst larger than the Birmingham collection, the Leicester collection, published by Carnegie Publishing with the support of Leicester City Council, offers two distinct sections with shorter chapters, meaning that more aspects of the city can be explored. The first section, ‘Understanding Leicester’, roughly covers the city's modern history until World War II. Rodger provides a survey chapter, supplying context for the remaining chapters in this section. James Moore offers a reassessment of the Leicester's radical political past, whilst chapters from Shane Ewen, Julie Rugg, and Siobhan Begley explore the workings of the town council in the areas of emergency services, burial grounds and civic pride respectively. Of particular interest to this author, Dieter Schott's chapter on the taming of the River Soar, highlighting how the town council changed the course of the flood-prone river on which Leicester resides and in so doing changing the natural and urban landscape, is especially welcome. The environmental history of Birmingham and Manchester is largely neglected, so it is particularly appreciated that the editors decided to dedicate space to this aspect of Leicester's urban identity. The second part of the book, ‘Reinventing Leicester’, is concerned with change in the city. Rodger again provides a survey chapter of the city after 1945; however, individual chapters are not wedded to this time frame, rather, they examine change across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with later chapters focusing on the post-war period. Lucy Faire examines changes to the home, starting in 1880, whilst John Welshman investigates the correlation between wealth and health provision in the city from 1900 up to the modern NHS. Simon Gunn provides a re-evaluation of the work of Konrad Smigielski, the noted post-war planner, who sought both to modernize Leicester's urban landscape and to preserve historic areas of the city such as Town Hall Square. Rebecca Madgin examines the saga around the Liberty building, a building that symbolized the changes that had taken place in the city, and as such works well as a final full chapter. A former boot and shoe factory, the building had suffered as a result of industrial decline and, despite the best efforts of preservation campaigns, was demolished in 2002, with much of the cultural memory attached to the factory transposed to the replica Statue of Liberty, which has come to symbolize Leicester's past and present. An area in which the collection is lacking is an examination of sport on the urban landscape, with Leicester being home to major teams in football, rugby union and cricket, although the editors can be forgiven for not foreseeing Leicester City's meteoric rise. Whereas both the Birmingham and Manchester collections have much to offer students and the general public, the Leicester collection provides research that can appeal to the public, students and urban historians as a stepping stone for further research into the areas discussed or as a starting point for comparative research.

Ultimately, the role of the urban biography is to chronicle the story of the city. With the importance of public history in academia growing, providing an account of a place that people can identify with is vitally important. Unlike some of the urban biographies reviewed by Morris and Reeder, the biographies under review here have the task of appealing to the public and to researchers, in order to show what we know about our cities and what more is still to be discovered. Whilst all succeed in providing a history that will appeal to the public, aided by graphs and illustrations, their success in providing new information to urban historians is more varied. The Leicester collection is the most successful in this venture, offering urban historians a real insight into the city's urban history whilst providing starting points for further research. The Manchester and Birmingham collections are not without merit, and it is perhaps unfair to judge them as urban histories. Whilst they may not hold much for the urban historian, they nonetheless provide important insights to the interested local historian and social historians examining the development of post-industrial cities.