This book celebrates London in all its antiquity and all its diversity. It traces the foundation of London by the Romans, through its ups and downs from devastation by Boudicca, the Great Fire and Hitler's bombers to the capital of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and the buzzing multicultural city that it is today. Though William Cobbett called London "the great wen" Samuel Johnson famously said that "the man that is tired of London is tired of life". Both visitors to London and Londoners themselves will find this fascinating cocktail of history, geography, myth and legend an engrossing read.