Liverpool is indisputably one of the greatest cities on earth. From its warm, tough, always-beating heart come people renowned for their friendliness, wit, resilience and strength of character. Throughout its long and surprisingly varied history Liverpool has engendered fierce loyalty from its citizens, and captivated even the most casual of visitors. This book traces the growth of the city from a little fishing village on the banks of the Mersey all the way from its foundation in 1207 to the proud European Capital of Culture 800 years later. Combining good historical research with a lively, fresh and highly accessible style, Peter Aughton describes every stage of Liverpool's remarkable town, its unprecedented growth as the major seaport for the world's first industrial society, its role in a mass history: from its origins as a tiny port in the tidal inlet known as the 'Liver Pool', to the horrors of the slave trade, the building of the world's first ever public railway, its brief spell in the eighteenth century as a fashionable spa emigration movement that saw perhaps as many as nine million souls depart from its quaysides for a better life in the New World, the devastation to docks, public buildings and houses caused during the terrible Blitz in 1941, the Mersey Sound which now draws thousands of visitors from around the world, right up to the recent renaissance of the town's fortunes which has culminated in the European Capital of Culture bid success. This is a truly fascinating story.