The back-to-back was once the most common form of housing in England. Although a half-million of the homes built in rows, courts, or blocks housed working people in Victorian cities, few remain standing today. Upton (history, Newman College of Higher Education, Birmingham, UK) took as the starting point for his popular history Court 15 in Birmingham, now a National Trust museum. Upton combines documentary evidence and oral history to describe the practical realities of life in a back-to-back as well as more conceptual matters like why Britain's population moved so readily into cities in the early 19th century, and moved away just as rapidly in the 1960s. The volume is well illustrated in sepia-tone b&w. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)