Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain - Book Launch and Discussion

Join Sam Wetherell, Patrick Joyce, Abi O'Connor, Janaya Pickett and Elsa Devienne for a discussion about Liverpool's modern history how the city helps us think about topics such as inequality, racial justice, climate change, deindustrialisation and urban history. The discussion will be held at the University of Liverpool's Law and Social Justice Event Space on 28 February between 5-7pm and will be followed by a free drinks reception.

Sam will be launching his new book, Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain. The book is a history of modern Britain told through post-war Liverpool, focussing on deindustrialisation, decolonisation, police violence, environmental ruin and radical politics. It argues Britain's current crisis demands a new story about its history and that Liverpool helps us do this. For more information about the book and how to preorder click here.

Sam Wetherell is a historian of modern Britain at the University of York, where he specialises in urban history and economic history. His first book, Foundations: How the Built Environment Made Twentieth Century was published in 2020 by Princeton University Press.

Patrick Joyce is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Manchester. A social and cultural historian, Joyce has published widely on themes such as urbanisation, class formation, social and cultural theory and migration. His latest book, Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World was published by Penguin in 2024.

Abi O'Connor is a sociologist of inequality and the city whose PhD thesis explored how stigmatisation shaped the urban political economy of Liverpool. She is currently a Research Fellow at the New Economics Foundation and a Director of the Housing Studies Association.

Janaya Pickett is a Liverpool-based historian and writer. Since 2014 she has worked for the Writing on the Wall Project where she has led walking tours, curated exhibitions and helped oversee the Dorothea Kuya and Liverpool 8 Law Centre archive projects. She has written widely on race, culture, feminism and music.

Elsa Devienne is an urban and environmental historian who is currently Assistant Professor of History at Northumbria University and has previously worked at Princeton University, Sciences Po Paris and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Her latest book Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth Century Los Angeles was published by Oxford University Press in 2024.

Host or Publisher Sam Wetherell