Hello, my name is Taylor and I’m currently doing my senior year at SUNY New Paltz. My degree is English with a concentration in creative writing. I originally was taking another class in place of this one but there was some confusion over my schedule and getting credits, so I had to drop the other class and was suggested that this one would be interesting to take. And as much as I like writing, I also have an interest in historical things, so why not? And here we are.

I guess the one thing that surprised me about the reading was in Robinson’s article about London being a ‘modern Babylon’. Thinking of Victorian London brings images of poverty and illness and pollution to my mind, and it’s not far from the truth. But it’s hard to picture Victorian London beyond this image, so reading about the appeals and acts that were put in place to ensure cleaner water, cleaner streets, and so on was pretty interesting. And the idea that it was the first global city was surprising. I mean it’s not that far-fetched of an idea in hindsight but when I think of global city, my mind usually goes to New York. Perhaps this was also meant to be the first global city in Europe, but it did kind of surprise me but at the same time not so. I just thought it was an interesting idea.