{"title":"Stuart Hylton","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into Stuart Hylton's gripping worlds, where thrilling mysteries and dark suspense await at every turn. Perfect for fans of Peter James and Mark Billingham. Discover your next enthralling read now.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"what-the-railways-did-for-us-book-stuart-hylton-9781445659527","title":"What the Railways Did For Us","description":"It is hard, from a distance of nearly two centuries, to imagine the impact the coming of the railways must have had at the start of the nineteenth century. Their physical impact was dramatic enough – great mechanical horses, breathing fire and smoke and drawing impossibly heavy trains at unimaginable speeds, across a landscape transformed by the embankments and cuttings, viaducts and tunnels their passage demanded. However, they would also transform the way war was conducted and peace was maintained; prove to be one of the drivers of the dramatic industrial growth of the nineteenth century; create opportunities for many to become enormously wealthy, but impoverish many more, who invested unwisely; cause the state to think again about the policy of laissez-faire that was its default position; transform our leisure; radically re-shape our towns and cities and change our very notions of time and how we measured it.  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Manchester was the shock city of the early 19th century, right at the cutting edge of dramatic changes in our domestic society – technological, social, economic and political. The radical new relationships forged there between employer and employee greatly influenced the development of Marxism, with all its consequences for the 20th century. In transport terms alone, the city led the way with the first real canal, the first real railway, the first public bus services and the first municipal airport. Its local government set a pace for enterprise that the rest of the country could only follow.  The social and economic problems that arose here became matters of national concern, while the political issues that stirred the city led to national reform. Disraeli coined the term ‘the Manchester School’ to describe the middle-class radicals who were the prime movers of the Anti-Corn Law League. 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Its individual character is exemplified by the extraordinary range of people who have lived here, from Thomas a Becket to the most controversial person ever to hold the office of Archbishop of Canterbury, from the man who effectively ran the country through the minority of a king to one of our least competent prime ministers. 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The book uses vivid contemporary accounts from Reading's newspaper  -  The Chronicle  -  to present a fascinating picture of daily existence during this exceptional period in recent history. Alongside many examples of tragedy and heroism, there is ample evidence of less admirable qualities. There are court cases, for instance, that involved individuals who tried to evade conscription or to prevent evacuees from being billeted in their homes. The book also recalls the chaos of the blackout,the flourishing black market, and the ladies' page in the newspaper with its fashion hints for suitable clothing to wear in air raid shelters. Then there is the sometimes hilarious shambles of the ARP's attempts to prepare the local population for gas attacks and the local Home Guard's staged 'battles' on the streets of the town. Finally, there are accounts of the astonishing bureaucracy which developed as Britain went onto a war footing and came close to becoming a totalitarian state. 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