Civilizing the Urban

Early industrial Merthyr is synonymous with the darker side of the British urban experience. This work considers the efforts of dedicated civic "boosters" to civilize the town's public spaces and its inhabitants and shows how this vision of Merthyr depended on the taming of popular culture.

'...this trenchant study...is meticulously researched, rigorous in its conceptual apparatus and lucidly written...Merthyr is a fascinating case study of the civic project...' English Historical Review 'Andy Croll has chosen to look at an unexplored aspect of the town, its transition from the shock town of the Welsh industrial revolution to a civic community with pretensions to urbanity. His gracefully written book is an engagement with the emerging historical problem of urban space...there is much here for historians of leisure, towns and of 19th-century British society in general.' History Today