Watching histories being made: remembering and reflecting on two early works by the founding editors

This is a reflective review of two important early works by Gordon Cherry (The Evolution of British Town Planning, 1974) and Tony Sutcliffe (Towards the Planned City, 1981). Together, Cherry and Sutcliffe initiated the scholarly network that is now the International Planning History Society and in 1986 became founding editors of Planning Perspectives. These books however demonstrate their individual scholarly credentials within what was the then new disciplinary field of planning history. This review uses its author's close personal links with the two authors from the late 1960s to give greater insight and depth to the discussion of the approaches, structures and contents of the reviewed works. It also considers the enduring value of the two works and the extent to which they have been superseded by later works. Reading them again, however, still shows the intellectual curiosity that lay behind the surge in interest in planning history during the 1970s and early 1980s. In doing that, we also gain greater insight into the origins of the academic journal, Planning Perspectives, itself.