A FEW YEARS AGO, I WAS FILMED in Birmingham for a BBC documentary (the footage wasn’t used). As a location, I’d suggested outside the monumental 1834 Town Hall — built not for government but as a venue for the then-famous triennial music festival, which would feature premieres from Mendelssohn, Dvo?ák and Elgar. Instead, a concrete gutter of a dual carriageway was chosen: the usual dismissive shorthand for the city if, indeed, it is thought about at all.
Birmingham is virtually absent in our national life. Peaky Blinders might seem an exception, but it really only adds to this ignorance. As Richard Vinen outlines in this absorbing book, the city was far more a place of affluence and confidence, modern factories and spacious housing,