scholarly journals CONRAD AND THE COMIC TURN

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Kerr
Keyword(s):  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Ford Madox Ford ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Music Hall ◽  
East End ◽  
City Of London ◽  
Secret Agent ◽  
The City

Of his nineteen years as a sailor, from 1874 to 1894, Joseph Conrad actually worked on ships for ten years and eight months, of which just over eight years were spent at sea, including nine months as a passenger (Najder 161–62). During these nomadic years, London was the place to which he returned again and again to seek his next berth, staying in a series of sailors’ homes, lodgings, and boarding houses. How did he spend his time, a single man with no family and few friends, whose main occupation was waiting? He recalled, in the preface toThe Secret Agent, “solitary and nocturnal walks all over London in my early days” (7). Ford Madox Ford says that Conrad knew all the bars around Fenchurch Street (which links the financial centre of the City of London to Whitechapel and the East End) from his days of waiting for a ship. Returning to the area later in life, according to Ford's slightly improbable memory, he “became at once the city-man gentleman-adventurer with an eye for a skirt,” who “could tell you where every husky earringed fellow with a blue, white-spotted handkerchief under his arm was going to. . . .” (Joseph Conrad116, 117). The reality of these London sojourns was probably less romantic, most of the time. But there was one place where a sailor ashore, without much money, could always go for company and entertainment: the music-hall.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This book is a study of the political economy of Britain’s chief financial centre, the City of London, in the two decades prior to the election of Margaret Thatcher’s first Conservative government in 1979. The primary purpose of the book is to evaluate the relationship between the financial sector based in the City, and the economic strategy of social democracy in post-war Britain. In particular, it focuses on how the financial system related to the social democratic pursuit of national industrial development and modernization, and on how the norms of social democratic economic policy were challenged by a variety of fundamental changes to the City that took place during the period....

scholarly journals From Big Bang to Brexit: The City of London and the Discursive Power of Finance

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172098571
Author(s):  
Scott James ◽  
Hussein Kassim ◽  
Thomas Warren
Keyword(s):  
Big Bang ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Real Economy ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Business Power ◽  
Financial Power ◽  
Discursive Power ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
The Eu

This article aims to generate new insights into the City’s influence during the Brexit negotiations. Integrating theories of discursive institutionalism and business power, we set out to analyse the dynamic ‘discursive power’ of finance. From this perspective, a key source of the City’s influence historically has been a powerful strategic discourse about London’s role as Europe’s leading global financial centre. This was strengthened following the financial crisis to emphasise its contribution to the ‘real’ economy and emerging regulatory threats from the EU. We argue that Brexit challenges the City’s discursive power by removing ‘ideational constraints’ on acceptable policy discourse, and undermining the ‘discursive co-production’ of financial power by government and industry. By encouraging financial actors to re-evaluate their interests, this has contributed to increasing discursive fragmentation and incoherence. Evidence for this comes from the City’s ambiguous policy preferences on Brexit, and the emergence of a rival pro-Brexit ‘discursive coalition’.

Land of Hope and Enterprise

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Alex Brummer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
Eu Referendum ◽  
The Uk ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

This chapter examines the contribution of recognized activities that make the UK economy, such as the progress in research, pharmaceuticals, technology, software, and innovation that can be traced back to the intellectual powerhouses of UK's institutions of higher learning. It recounts the UK's love–hate relationship with the City of London, wherein the banks are still blamed for the financial crisis of 2007–2009 and the subsequent stagnation and fall in incomes. It also cites finance as the highest UK earner of overseas income and is a magnet for international institutions. The chapter describes London as the biggest financial centre outside New York and has attracted even greater numbers of skilled financial traders since the EU referendum result of 2016. It explains how the UK financial sector accommodated trading, provided credit, and raised new capital for troubled firms and those seeking post-Covid-19 opportunities.

The City of London and the Politics of ‘Invisibles’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Post War ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter considers the resurgence of the City of London as an international financial centre in the late twentieth century. It highlights the role played by a campaign to promote the revival of the City as a post-sterling international financial centre. The Committee on Invisible Exports campaigned for the recognition of the City’s contribution to Britain’s balance of payments through its ‘invisible earnings’, and argued that this could be increased by reducing impediments on its activities. The invisibles campaign was a distinct product of the post-war preoccupation with the balance of payments, which challenged the fundamental belief, embedded in economic policy since the war, that the route to national prosperity was in expanding industrial production. The campaign sought to reconceptualize Britain as a historic commercial and financial, rather than industrial, economy. In doing so it undercut a core principle on which the social democratic political–economic project was based.

The economic structure of the City of London at the end of the seventeenth century

Urban History ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Population History ◽  
Small Areas ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
East End ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

While there has been much interest recently in the early modern history of London there has been little work done on establishing a comprehensive picture of the City, the central core of its economy. The population history of the City has begun to be explored in a systematic way. The social and economic structure of one or two small areas has begun to be examined, both within the City and outside, in districts such as Southwark and the East End. Other studies concentrating on single issues have attempted to establish such things as the economic profile of the metropolis from the occupations given in a sample of parish death registers, resulting in a claim that the London manufacturing sector was more significant than commerce, and not the reverse, as had been assumed previously. Another study, by Power, based on the hearth tax from a small sample of parishes concluded with the comment that ‘the impression is gained of an urban scene where occupations and rich and poor are thoroughly jumbled’.

London

2019 ◽  
pp. 168-220
Author(s):  
Andrew Thacker
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War Two ◽  
Hill Area ◽  
Secret Agent ◽  
The City ◽  
Literary Networks

This chapter considers how London developed as a modernist city, from the late nineteenth century to the period after World War Two. It analyses the geographical emotions produced by particular locations within London, such as the London Underground and Metro-Land suburbs; the cultural institutions of Bloomsbury and Fleet Street; the bohemia of Soho and the nightlife of Piccadilly Circus; and the Notting Hill area settled by postwar immigrants to the city. It considers the affective responses of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Henry James to the material restructuring of the city, before turning to the role of publishers, bookshops, and literary networks in helping establish modernism in the city, in the shape of poetic movements such as the Rhymers and the Imagists. The final part of the chapter analyses texts by two important outsiders in London: Joseph Conrad in The Secret Agent and Sam Selvon in The Lonely Londoners.

The Sources of Recovery in UK in the 1930s

1984 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. D. N. Worswick
Keyword(s):  
Open Economy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
The World ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

Britain, like any other open economy, is linked through exports and imports to the movements of prices and production in the world at large. But the emergence of the City of London as a major international financial centre forged an extra link between the fortunes of the British and world economies, which was still very strong in the inter-war period. It is appropriate, therefore, to preface this account of the economic recovery in Britain after the Depression with a brief reminder of the circumstances prevailing in the world economy at that time.

Big Bang in the City of London: an intentional revolution or an accident?

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Bellringer ◽  
Ranald Michie
Keyword(s):  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Securities Market ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Small Change ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

In July 1983 an agreement was reached between the British government and the London Stock Exchange that was to transform the London securities market in October 1986. The result was a revolution that extended all the way from the design of the market to those permitted access to the governance of those who traded. Given the speed of change, it was termed ‘Big Bang’ by contemporaries. As the scale of the transformation became known, politicians were quick to claim credit for what had been achieved. Subsequently, Big Bang has been regarded as one of the crowning achievements of the Conservative government led by Mrs Thatcher, providing the foundation for the City of London's re-emergence as the leading international financial centre. However, only now is evidence emerging of the intentions of those involved at the time rather than as expressed in the light of hindsight, which casts doubt on what they were seeking to achieve, whether viewed from the perspective of either the politicians or those in charge of the Stock Exchange. Instead, the longer-term pressure for change in the London securities market, the chain reaction caused by abolition of fixed-commission charges, and the proactive role of the Bank of England appear to be of greater significance. What an examination of the process leading up to Big Bang in 1986 reveals is the complexity of political decision involving the financial sector and the danger of unforeseen consequences. One small change can create a tipping point if the result is to remove an essential element within a complex system.

The People of the Abyss

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara S. Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The People ◽  
Middle Class Family ◽  
Jacob Riis ◽  
The Face ◽  
Henry Mayhew ◽  
East End ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The People of the Abyss is Jack London’s study of the poor in the city of London, England, in 1902. This essay places the book in the context of earlier poverty studies by Joseph Tuckerman, Henry Mayhew, William Booth, Charles Loring Brace, Jacob Riis, Robert Blatchford, George Hawes, and others. The essay then considers four tensions within London’s book: between London’s roles as both observer and participant, between his affinity for the lower classes of his own origin and his new status as a successful writer and middle-class family man, between his feelings of both revulsion and sympathy for the poor, and between the docile and subservient poor and those who are spirited or rebellious in the face of charity. The interplay of these tensions enables London to portray vividly and examine fully the lives of the poor who inhabit the East End of the city of London.

Brexit is set to weaken UK financial services industry

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
European Economic Area ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

Subject UK financial industry's 'passporting' and 'equivalence' in post-Brexit EU. Significance Under current EU rules, the United Kingdom will lose its passporting rights -- which allow financial companies authorised in the United Kingdom to sell their products across the European Economic Area (EEA) -- once it leaves the bloc. This would damage the reputation and status of the City of London as Europe’s leading financial centre. Impacts The EU is unlikely to change its tough stance and allow the United Kingdom to retain its passporting rights after its leaves the EEA. Cities in remaining EU member states such as Dublin, Frankfurt or Paris may attract some business from London. However, New York will probably be the biggest winner in the long term. Restrictions on EU migration could further impact the competitiveness and attractiveness of the City of London after Brexit.

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