The Haçienda in 1989: ‘Gave the kiss of life to a dying city and sparked a chain reaction of hubris, scandal, money and power politics still playing out today. Manchester Unspun is a remarkable record of the city’s emergence from industrial decline over the past fifty years. Andy Spinoza came to Manchester as a student in the late 1970s and has lived in the city ever since. The “24-hour party people” celebrated in Michael Winterbottom’s film homage to Wilson, says Spinoza, created the aura and cachet that helped them sell Manchester around the world and earn the right to host events such as the Commonwealth Games.

Manchester unspun begins in the post-industrial gloom of a city still bearing the scars of the Second World War and ends among the shiny towers of an aspiring twenty-first-century metropolis.Given the people he’s rubbed shoulders with along the way there’s a surprising lack of ego as Spinoza recounts a string of personal encounters and anecdotes over five decades. In the spirit of Braudel, who asserts that ‘the Mediterranean speaks with many voices; it is a sum of individual histories’, this book endeavours to allow the people of the early modern Mediterranean to be heard more than one can find in any other study till now, and strives to cast all its major themes in a new light. There are stories about Spinoza's time as Gossip Columnist for the Manchester Evening News, his own publishing career as founding member of the City Life magazine, the Hacienda and various brushes with the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the Manchester cognoscenti, who have made Manchester the city it is today. That journey of evolution is enmeshed with tales of the movers and shakers, who all helped shape this wonderful city.

As Spinoza recounts, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, and a multitude of significant figures forging the city’s future; in this book he explores exactly how these often diverse influences intersected in a unique way. Finally, explorations of medieval and modern Islamic sharia, Christian moral theology and Jewish halakhah all highlight how such traditions develop complex meta-rules – rules about rules – for managing the tensions and dilemmas that the use of rules can entail. Back at Civic Engineers’ reception last week it was appropriate that we should be talking about the book because it includes the origin story of the practice. It is an insider's tale of deals done, government and corporate decision-making, nightclubs, music and entrepreneurs. Change country: -Select- Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Azerbaijan Republic Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Cape Verde Islands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Cook Islands Costa Rica Cyprus Czech Republic Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Fiji Finland French Guiana French Polynesia Gabon Republic Gambia Georgia Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iraq Israel Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of Croatia Republic of the Congo Reunion Romania Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts-Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea Sri Lanka Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands (U.It starts in a monochrome world of bomb sites and derelict warehouses and gradually turns from sepia into the full technicolour wonderland it presents today. In his new book Manchester Unspun, Spinoza introduces us to the architects of the city’s transformation from “post-industrial malaise” to a thriving hub of music, culture and football. The results were spectacular and for the launch event, our team found themselves fielding interviews from Nicky Campbell on BBC 5 Live, fending off national newspapers and dealing with a Channel 4 News crew preparing a five minute slot for that evening’s bulletin.