The East End is on the seaward side of London and its history is inextricably linked with the most complex docklands of any industrial society, serving what used to be a great trading nation and an Imperial power. As well as goods entering the port, generations of immigrants have flowed in - Protestant Huguenots from France, Irish labourers fleeing the potato blight, Jews escaping Russian pogroms, and Indians and Pakistanis. This study examines the evolution of the Tower Hamlets - Bethnal Green, Poplar, Hackney and Stepney - and sifts through the facts relating to an area notorious for its violent crime, political unrest and poverty. He argues that the area is a microcosm of the tensions apparent in British society as a whole, derived from the impact of the Industrial Revolution, the age of the railway, the two World Wars and the current invasion of the young rich.