Europe Rehoused was one of the most influential housing texts of the 1930s, and is still widely cited. Written by the housing consultant Elizabeth Denby (1894-1965) it offered a survey of the nearly two decades of social housing built across Europe since the end of World War One, with the aim of informing British policy makers; as a reviewer declared ‘it has a decidedly propagandist flavour’. Denby was a leading figure in housing debates in the 1930s. Adopting a line in sharp critique of what she saw as the entirely materialist approach of state housing policy, Denby advocated the incorporation of social amenities alongside well-designed and equipped flats and houses, ideally sited within urban areas; by the late 1930s she was a pioneering advocate of the concept of mixed development. Europe Rehoused is divided into two parts. The first considered the origins of the housing problem of the inter-war decades, which Denby dated to the onset of the Industrial Revolution. She then examined the various national factors which influenced the problem: climate, post-war economy and the nature of land ownership. Finally she discussed the financial aspect: the bodies responsible for house building and the nature of the subsidies available for building. This was very much a schematic survey and the second, and largest, part of the book was devoted to individual studies of European practice, and discussed ‘two winners in the War, two losers and two neutrals’: Sweden, Holland, Germany, Vienna, Italy and France. This section was completed with a concluding chapter in which she compared continental work with the British system, and the lessons that could be learnt in this country from abroad. Although Denby’s book was not the only one of its sort, its importance lies in its polemical nature and its advocacy of a rehousing policy which would become widely adopted after WWII. Significant too, is that the book is the voice of a woman who had assumed a significant status as a housing expert in the inter-war decades; Walter Gropius, who wrote the introduction to the US edition of the book observed that the book ‘carried the weight of perfect expertness.’ Such voices have for too long been overlooked, yet Denby was formed part of a very strong tradition of women reformers who worked to re-shape the inter-war and post-war British built environment.

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A WATERSTONES POLITICS PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR, 2018 The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society. This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places which cannot accept them. Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter he also takes a step back to look at the bigger issues which lie behind a continent's death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilisation, would do this to themselves? He ends with two visions of Europe – one hopeful, one pessimistic – which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next.