KING MOB

For almost a week in 1780 London was terrorized, looted and burned by a frenzied mob. History knows this unprecedented event as the Gordon Riots. They started as a middle-class protest against the government's decision to ase the lot of Anglo-Catholics, became an outlet for the pent-up feelings of the downtrodden working class and degenerated in a thieves' and harlots' free-for-all. This is the fascinating story of the man responsible for these riots- Lord George Gordon; an aristocratic MP, eccentric to the point of insanity, a lover of humanity and a victim of his own good intentions and Calvinistic background. Although a frightened government couldn't convict him of treason, Gordon was imprisoned for slander and died in prison a converted Jew. As in his previous book, The Read To Christopher Hibbert deals with the seamier side of the Age of Reason in a manner both scholarly and interesting.