Naomi's Bookshelf: Up All Night: A World History of Nightlife by Imogen Willetts

Hello my lovely readers! This was a fun read! Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
There is a specific energy to a Saturday night. Cafés and shops close their shutters. Market traders dismantle their wares. “The air begins to tingle”, as John Dos Passos wrote about ’20s New York. “If you drink enough, talk enough, walk far enough, the train of magical events will begin.”

Nightlife began in the 17th century, when Edo and London built commercial environments designed for after-dark hedonism. Since then, nightlife has been at the frontier of popular culture and self-expression. It has defined cities and generations, bred moral panics and iconic countercultures, and gone from demimonde to global phenomenon, yet its sweeping history has been left untold.

Up All Night provides a guided tour of history’s most captivating nights out—from the luxurious pleasure quarters of samurai-era Japan to the saloons of turn-of-the-century New Orleans and the speakeasies of twenties Harlem. Whisking readers through underground dives, mega-clubs, raves and experimental cabarets, cultural historian Imogen Willetts takes us behind the velvet rope of history's hottest nightspots to show how they changed the world around us.

MY THOUGHTS
This book was deeper than I expected! Not only did Willetts cover global nightlife, but she was also really in depth about how it was formed from race, politics and culture. I truly felt whisked away into 17th century Japan and 1890s Montmatre, Paris. It also brought back many memories of my clubbing days abroad, so here are some photos of me living it up!