I became interest in the Gordon Riots after reading Barnaby Rudge and wondering why I had never heard of this major historical event in British history before. I first read a more modern book on the topic (The Gordon Riots: Politics, Culture and Insurrection in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain by Ian Haywood, John Seed | The StoryGraph) which was very insightful and had lots of details from different sources. King mob seems to be the most cited book on the topic though and was written many years earlier so I borrowed it from a friend (friendofgossig) to read as well. 

The style of this is very different, it’s clearly more popular history and follows a narrative format, it’s almost more of a biography of Lord George Gordon than the riots themselves for a lot of the book which is very interesting. I think it’s less reliable as a book since the language and writing sometimes follows what people were thinking at the time and sources of very specific details are not made clear, however it does make it a much more entertaining read. 

I was ready to give it 3.5 stars half way through since, although interesting, it didn’t tell me anything new that is also well fact checked however the last section covering the legal case of Lord Gordon and his conversion to Judaism as so gripping that I have to  up it to 4, I couldn’t put it down for the last few chapters. There’s very little written about this event so I can’t say I’ll be reading any more on the topic but if I see something I will be picking it up with continues vigour.