Sign-In
Cart
From These Streets
Paperback
Biographies GeneralHistorical FiguresBritish History
Publisher Price: $14.95
ISBN13: 9781918786453
Publisher: D&h Publishing International
Published: Sep 9 2026
Pages: 128
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.27 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The joule. The most quoted line in British sports commentary. The most performed Christmas carol in the English language. The most influential work of Victorian social theory. All from Salford. Almost nobody knows it.
For centuries, one of Britain's most remarkable cities has watched its achievements claimed by the place next door. FROM THESE STREETS sets the record straight.
In fifty vivid biographical portraits, historian David Oldham recovers the men and women whose lives were shaped by Salford's streets and whose work, in turn, shaped the world. Here is William Crabtree, standing transfixed at his attic window in Broughton on 24 November 1639, the first human being ever to witness the transit of Venus across the sun. Here is John Byrom, scribbling a Christmas gift for his daughter Dolly in 1745, unaware he was composing a carol that would be sung by millions every year for centuries to come. Here is James Prescott Joule, whose obsessive measurements in a Salford brewery gave science its standard unit of energy. Here is Friedrich Engels, whose years on Salford's streets produced a work of social analysis that changed the course of history.
These are not footnotes to someone else's story. They are the story.
FROM THESE STREETS spans astronomy and athletics, poetry and politics, invention and social reform. It introduces readers to the Nos Keplari, a self-taught circle of northern stargazers who laid the groundwork for Newton and the first Astronomer Royal, working entirely outside the university establishment. It restores names that history mislaid and connects lives across four centuries to reveal a coherent, defiant civic identity.
David Oldham argues, quietly but with considerable force, that belonging to Salford is defined not by a birth certificate but by the reciprocal relationship between a place and a person. It is an argument that will resonate with everyone who grew up being told they were from somewhere lesser, and discovered they were not.
Rigorous in its research, warm in its storytelling, and unashamed in its civic pride, FROM THESE STREETS is the book Salford has always deserved. A gift for anyone with roots in the city, an essential read for lovers of popular British history and collective biography, and a powerful reminder that the North of England has never needed anyone else to tell its story.
Also from
Oldham, David
Acid House: Le Second Été de l'Amour - L'Histoire de la Culture Rave Britannique 1987-1991: D'Ibiza au Haçienda: Comment la House Music a Changé à Jam
Oldham, Helen
Collinge, Mitch
Oldham, David
Paperback
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Toby Byron (ED.)
Pete Welding (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover