Dr Carl Chinn MBE is well known as an academic, broadcaster and author. A passionate Brummie, he is Community Historian at The University of Birmingham, a regular columnist for The Birmingham Evening Mail, and a presenter of his own local history radio show from BBC Pebble Mill. He is also the author of many books on Birmingham's history. Meticulously researched, Brum and Brummies 3 includes extracts from the many accounts sent to Carl by men and women who remember the Birmingham of yesteryear. This third fully illustrated volume on the people and places of old Birmingham will reawaken many memories. The book is dedicated, in the author's words, to all Brummies proud of our city and proud of our forebears.

In the early 1870s, the boomtown of Birmingham erupted in a series of vicious gang wars. Mobs of youths armed with stones, knives and belt buckles fought pitched battles in a struggle for territorial supremacy. Known as "sloggers", they drew their numbers from the workshops and factories that made guns, nails and jewellery, and lived cheek-by-jowl in overcrowded, insanitary slums. Author Philip Gooderson traces the history of these warring factions from their first appearance in the Cheapside area to the later rise of the "peaky blinders", new gangs named for their peaked caps and long fringes. He describes for the first time the brutal antics of once-infamous fighters such as the Simpson and Harper brothers and the police killer George "Cloggy" Williams, and explains the eventual demise of the gangs at the turn of the century. The Gangs of Birmingham brings to vivid life a forgotten chapter in the history of British gangland.

Birmingham, the cradle of the industrial revolution and the world's first manufacturing town, is an important focus for many family historians who will find that their trail leads through it. Rural migrants, Quakers, Jews, Irish, Italians, and more recently people from the Caribbean, South-Asia and China have all made Birmingham their home. This vibrant history is reflected in the city's rich collections of records, and Michael Sharpe's handbook is the ideal guide to them. He introduces readers to the wealth of information available, providing an essential guide for anyone researching the history of the city or the life of an individual ancestor. His work addresses novices and experienced researchers alike and offers a compendium of sources from legal and ecclesiastical archives, to the records of local government, employers, institutions, clubs, societies and schools. Accessible, informative and extensively referenced, it is the perfect companion for research in Britain's second city.

What does 'Chobblin' mean? What are 'Donnies'? If it's 'Black Over Bill's Mother's' what should you do? Where does the saying come from? All these questions and many more are answered in this humorous and engaging little book of how Brummies spoke and speak. containing sayings and phrases from recent history and much, much further back.Essential for the younger Brummie to understand their older relatives, and a book full of nostalgia for the 'old uns'. A treasure-trove of Brummie, Black Country and other slang used in Birmingham for centuries. An important repository for these fast - disappearing local gems. Read it, use them and keep our heritage language alive. Also a great gift for older Brummies.

The city of Birmingham offers a particularly rich case study on urban regeneration as it strives to build a new city image. Positioned between decline and regeneration, the landscape of the city and its environs collages old and new, producing dramatic contrasts - of industrial and post-industrial urbanisms of crumbling brutalism and spectacular flagship developments, of Victorian housing and diverse cultural lifestyles - that compound the aesthetic and socio-economic means of regeneration. This visually exciting book also reflects upon and extends current debates about public space, cultural zoning and the futures of cities.