The History of Leicester in 100 People, Stephen Butt,
Amberley, 2013, paperback, 96 pp, £14.99 ISBN 9781445616858 

A History of the World in 100 Objects has proved hugely influential in structuring a highly selective encyclopaedic perspective on global material culture as a window into various facets of the history of
humanity. A variation of the concept is applied here but with a microcosmic rather than a macrocosmic perspective focusing upon how the history of one very cosmopolitan midlands city has been shaped by 100 individuals. The issues of selection leap from the introductory reflections of the author Stephen Butt: What criteria should be used to decide who should be included in a list of 100 individuals most influential in the development of a city? How do you differentiate between those whose presence in Leicester has been very transient and others who have been a powerful and dominant presence for many years? How will some of the famous and infamous of today be regarded by historians of the future and what about ‘the many individuals who have changed the course of Leicester's history who remain unknown except to their close family and friends?

The questions are posed rhetorically rather than issuing in any systematic selection criteria signalled in advance and the reader is left to judge how far the actual selection  made by the author might be considered reasonably representative of one of England's most  cosmopolitan cities. The selections range from the first to the twenty-first centuries. Commencing with Volisios, regional leader of the Corieltauvi, now known only through inscriptions on coins minted between c 30-60 AD and conclude with Geoff Rowe, "founder and chief executive of Dave's Comedy Festival", which since 1994 has expanded to encompass 530 events contributing an estimated £2 million to the local economy every year leaving Leicester, the author observes in his final sentence ‘laughing all the way to the bank'.

Leicester, of course, has recently been under the global spotlight on account of its fortuitous association with King Richard III or rather the defeated monarch's corpse, reverently entombed for over half a millennium beneath what ultimately became a city centre car park until recently laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral, ‘knowing that the presence of his remains inside their church will mean a secure financial future for their work' the author cynically observes in what appears to be an emerging theme. However, his text encompasses a rich variety of other individuals including that other medieval legendary colossus Simon de Montfort whose name was appropriated for the city's second university but whose historical reputation has been the subject of almost as much debate as that of the last Plantagenet. Indeed, so many of the entries are of well-known figures in English history, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Lady Jane Grey, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, George Stephenson, Thomas Cooper, and Ramsay Macdonald. Moreover it is heartening to discover that space for the local historian W.G. Hoskins was found alongside the Attenborough brothers, Henry Curry, Joe Orton, Biddy Baxter, Sue Townshend, Gary Lineker, C.P. Snow and Willie Thorne and that Resham Singh Sandhu, Sikh High Sheriff of Leicestershire and Dilwar Hussain, a leading Islamist, also rub shoulders with Hugh Latimer, William Carey, Mary Royce, Thomas Cook and the Revd David Vaughan.