Richard Vinen captures the drama of a small village that grew to become the quintessential city of the 20th century: Birmingham. For much of its existence, it has been a great magnet for migration, drawing in a significant proportion of South Wales as well as people from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Vinen roots his sweeping story in the experience of individuals. This is a book about figures everyone has heard of, from J. R. R. Tolkien to Duran Duran, and those that everyone ought to have heard of, such as the Communist convenor at the Longbridge factory or the remarkable West Indians interviewed for the 1960s documentary The Colony. It also captures the ways in which hundreds of thousands of people were caught up in the convulsions of social change. Birmingham is not a pretty place, and its history does not always make for comfortable reading. But modern Britain does not make sense without it.