A volume that takes the reader back two thousand years, to the first stirrings of ‘Maenwicken’, and ends now, in the 2020s. This is a spectacular story, a remarkable history that takes the reader from the Romans and ancient religious mystics to the machine makers of the industrial revolution, to the Victorian cotton merchants, the creators of the Gothic city and revered figures such as Emmeline Pankhurst, L.S. Lowry, Alan Turing, George Best, Tony Wilson and hundreds more pioneers who have created one of the world’s greatest cities.