Between 1500 and 1800, London became the largest city in Europe, its financial, commercial, cultural, and social capital, and the headquarters of a vast global empire. To survive the city’s many dangers, toils, and snares, its inhabitants needed to evolve into a new type of early modern urbanite, one that was flexible, resilient, entrepreneurial, optimistic, determined, and wryly humorous: the Londoner. Historian Robert Bucholz charts the city’s rapid growth, traces how its residents forged communities, and examines the panorama of London life from the splendid galleries of Whitehall to the damp and sooty alleyways of the East End.