As the editors of this book suggest in their introduction, there is an innate tendency among historians to categorize towns according to their apparent specialisms. In this view, towns are either centres of manufacturing or industry, or of leisure and pleasure, but never both. Resorts and Ports offers a vigorous and persuasive challenge to this view, by showing how tourism could have a complex and mutually supportive relationship with other forms of economic activity.

The book's strength lies in the number and range of case-studies which are presented. In 11 chapters, towns from across northern and western Europe are discussed, with most authors tackling a fairly broad sweep of history. A helpful introduction, which reviews the historiography and draws connections between the different chapters, is also provided. In a book such as this, one might expect chapters on towns such as Brighton or Whitby, but more surprising is the inclusion of essays on less renowned tourist destinations such as Swansea and Bristol. A theme which runs through many chapters is the complex relationship between different types of economic activity across urban space. In some places, such as Bristol or Whitby, there was a degree of separation between activities, but in others, such as Swansea or Brighton, different geographies of interaction occur. Another impressive aspect of the book is the range of approaches which have been taken, both in methodological terms, and in the way that history itself is explored. Fred Gray's chapter, in particular, offers an exploration of the changing nature of three views of Brighton which situates the analysis of textual and graphical material alongside a description of the author's own subjective experience of these vistas. This approach is contrasted with John K. Walton's study of Whitby's contested identity as it was manifested in efforts towards civic improvement, or by Simo Laakkonen and Karina Vasilevska's chapter on Jurmala, Latvia, which is based on oral history interviews. The book is, therefore, of value not just to specialist historians of port towns and of tourism, but to urban historians in general, in that it showcases the diverse range of approaches which are available to us, and encourages us to think carefully about the typological categories that we employ.

Of course, the diversity of approaches and case-studies inevitably raises the question of where the themes of this book might lead. The use of case-studies from a variety of countries and eras is admirable, but one feels that the next step would be to expand the book's analysis beyond the confines of Europe. Might the beaches of Alang in India or Chittagong in Bangladesh, where the world's largest ships are broken up in spectacular fashion, be of great interest to European tourists, for instance? As the introduction to Resorts and Ports argues, the way that so many of the places examined in the book shared similar experiences is striking. One wonders quite how far this point can be stretched, and whether we might identify shared experiences not within European cities, but between European cities and those of Asia or the Middle East. Furthermore, while the range of approaches employed is admirable, there may be value in employing a more rigorously quantitative approach. While David Hussey's chapter does use the analysis of the proceeds of Bristol's Hotwell to show the decline of the resort, there would be great value in using quantitative methods to examine further the ‘standard narrative’ in which the rise of resorts is associated with a decline in pre-existing forms of economic activity. This narrative is critically considered in a variety of ways by Resorts and Ports, but further research from the perspective of quantitative economic history might help to understand these processes further.