In this survey of the life of London throughout the eighteenth century, Professor Rude outlines the main themes in the development of the metropolis, and deals with every aspect of the greatest capital city in Europe: the physical growth of the town both as a capital and as a residential area; economic life and communications; social classes, social life and the arts; the small traders, craftsmen wage-earners and the poor; religion and the churches; government and administration, and the bewildering medley of controlling and contending bodies; the role of London in the political and economic life of the nation; the machinery of political manipulation; the almost continuous opposition to the Court and government; the outbreaks of social protest from below; trades unions, strikes, industrial riots and the mob; the emergence of Radicalism and the phenomenon of Wilkes; the changing pattern of London during the French Wars and on the brink of the nineteenth century.