Black Country Elites is a study of the people who ran Victorian industrial towns; it also examines the institutions, policies, rituals, and networks these urban elites deployed to cope with urban growth, social unrest, and relative economic decline. Concentrating on a particularly grimy district of the industrial Midlands, the book demonstrates the surprisingly great resources, coherence, sophistication and impact of the area's mainly middle class leaders, who were well linked to regional and national power centers. The strength of this provincial industrial elite suggests the need to...