I have recently finished reading two books about London history, London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd and London: the Autobiography by Jon Lewis.
The Biography was roughly chronological with the chapters organised by theme. It left me rather cold in the way it seemed to focus on the vibe of the city. Within the chapters it jumped around referencing different sources and time periods in a confusing and disconnected way. There were frequent descriptions of images, but rarely were the images provided.
The Autobiography was an collection of extracts from contemporaneous texts in chronological order. I much preferred this one. While the biography talked about the vibe, the autobiography did a better job embodying that vibe. The texts were selected with care, so they provided a grounded and comprehensible experience aided by short contextual remarks from the editor.
