London is the most diverse city in the world. While popular discourse might view this as a recent phenomenon, either since the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 or since EU enlargement in 2004, the former heart of empire and capital of the world has a unique experience of migration dating back to its Roman origins.
Professor Panikos Panayi's talk will outline the distinctive aspects of London’s history which explain the level of thediversity which has always existed within the metropolis,including its international status and size.
It will demonstrate that the ethnic diversity does not only manifest itself in the range of national origins of migrants to London both in the twenty first and in previous centuries, but also through the social range of those who have settled in the metropolis, covering virtually every occupation from Victorian navvies and merchant bankers to contemporary footballers.
London born Panikos Panayi is Professor of European History at De Montfort University and author of Migrant City: A New History of London (Yale Books, 2020).
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