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A heartfelt case for why the English pub still matters and how we can save it.
In Pubs for the people, Amit Singh and Sivamohan Valluvan offer a daring defence of the humble public house, waging battle against those who see the pub only as a poignant symbol of a bygone England.
Making a journey into the nation’s living room, they blend tales of Singh’s father – the founder of London’s first ‘Desi pub’ – with a lively travelogue that carries them from a hipster nightmare in Shoreditch to an izakaya-inspired Eccles pub run by migrants from Hong Kong. Along the way, they take on private equity, yuppie gentrifiers and culture-war blowhards who use the pub as a prop for their rage-baiting patriotism.
Life today can seem lonelier, angrier and poorer than it did before. But as Singh and Valluvan show, the pub offers the inviting prospect of a more equal, sociable and comfortably multiracial England.
‘Raising a glass from Dar es Salaam to the desi pubs of Dudley Road, this book offers an up-to-date examination and possible path forward for the Great British pub and its loyal patrons.’
John Warland, Founder of Liquid History Tours
‘Taking us for a pint in a variety of establishments, from Wetherspoons to Black Country desi pubs, this book nudges our understanding of the English pub away from today's right-wing hallucination and back towards something more accurate and nuanced. In doing so, it reveals the pub's capacity for ordinary, everyday togetherness. A clever, charming and powerfully convivial book.’
Emma Warren, author of Up the Youth Club: A Love Letter
‘Pubs for the people is an enjoyable counterpoint to declinist narratives about the health of the pub, and also the country itself. It eschews nostalgia for what pubs used to be and instead celebrates them as a resilient and fluid format that has adapted to the needs of people today.’
Jonathan Nunn, writer and co-editor of Vittles
‘With Pubs for the people, Amit and Vallu have really captured the spirit of the British pub and offered a crucial perspective on the importance of its continued existence. So often this great cultural institution is taken for granted, but here it is captured with deep respect, an incredible level of research and some wonderful writing.’
Matthew Curtis, editor, Pellicle Magazine
Sivamohan Valluvan is a sociologist at the University of Warwick. He is the author of The Clamour of Nationalism: Race and Nation in Twenty-First-Century Britain (2019). His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Renewal, Salvage, Red Pepper and Progressive Review.
Amit Singh is a sociologist at University College London. He is the author of Cancelled Futures: Class, Race, and Place in Post-Industrial Britain (2026). He would, in another life, have been a fourth-generation publican.
Introduction: pubs for the people?
1 The rise and fall of the pub
2 Racism, rupees and the ‘world famous’ Glassy Junction
3 The Wetherspoons takeover
4 Hipster pubs, gastropubs and somewhere in between
5 Death of the rural pub?
6 Pubs for other Englands: mixed grills in the Midlands
Conclusion: salvaging the good life?
Index