City of Bath

The City of Bath by Barry Cunliffe, 175 pages

Not to be confused with the seat of Steuben County, the city of Bath in Somerset has been occupied since the Romans built a public bath and temple over the hot springs in the first century AD.  Through the following millennia its fortunes rose and fell, becoming in turns home to a magnificent abbey, a site of royal coronations, a sleepy backwater, a fashionable (and later unfashionable) resort, a headquarters for the Royal Navy, and a tourist town.  It is its Georgian phase, as its 18th century magnificence turned increasingly shabby in the 19th, that it is best remembered today, largely through the novels of Jane Austen.

Barry Cunliffe surveys the material history of the city throughout its lifetime, charting the changing buildings and streets.  Those hoping for a history of the people are likely to be disappointed, for Cunliffe doesn't even waste much time with anecdotes about major figures.  Those who prefer unadorned facts, on the other hand, are likely to be pleased, although perhaps even they would appreciate a master map somewhere among the many fine illustrations.