ROY PORTER is Professor in the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London. He is most recently the author of THE GREATEST BENEFIT TO MANKIND (HarperCollins, 1998) and the forthcoming (10/00) Allen Lane title ENLIGHTENMENT: BRITAIN AND THE CREATION OF THE MODERN WORLD.

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• Formation to Reformation; Tudor London; war, plague and fire; the triumph of town - from Restoration to Regency; commercial city - 1650-1800; culture city -life under the Georges; capitalism in the capital - the Victorian age; "the contagion of numbers" - the building of the Victorian capital - 1820-1890; Bumbledom? London's politics - 1800-1890; social problems, social improvement - 1820-1890; Victorian life; "a fungus-like growth" - expansion - 1890-1945; modern growth, modern government - 1890-1945; swinging London, dangling economy - 1945-1975; Thatcher's London. Conclusion: the London Marathon.