Liverpool becomes an original and compelling lens through which Sam Wetherell reassesses our industrial, maritime and social history, and provides an arresting account of Britain’s decline and fall. - Will Hutton, author of This Time No Mistakes

Wetherell cleverly projects a diagnosis for Britain's post-industrial decline through the prism of Liverpool's hidden social histories. - Stephen McGann

In his absorbing and richly detailed new book, Sam Wetherell tells a Liverpool story which highlights Merseyside’s unique qualities while at the same time showing how the recent past of one particular city might foretell the future of Britain as a whole. - Alan Allport, author of Britain at Bay

It is not an overstatement to say that this book will change the way we think about the history of modern Britain. - Emily Baughan, author of Saving the Children and 2024 BBC New Generation Thinker

This book is a persuasive argument for Liverpool as a lens through which to understand British history. The trajectory of this extraordinary port city, as a major node in the ignominious networks of slave trade and colonial commerce, a palimpsest of immigrant communities including the oldest Irish, Black and Chinese populations in England, a site of working-class revolt, a testing ground for Thatcherite policies, and a troubling example of 'managed' obsolescence. Wetherell demands that we see Liverpool as a prophecy of what might befall us all in Britain. - Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and Trade