Liverpool's cosmopolitan nature was reinforced by WWII's influx of American GIs and the city's role as the western gateway for transatlantic supplies, which was also one of the reasons it was heavily bombed during the war. Liverpool also accommodated the Combined Headquarters of the Western Approaches, which coordinated the transatlantic convoys and the battle against German U-Boats. In the decades after WWII, Liverpool entered a devastating decline, paralleling that of Britain itself: its docks were deserted, its workers were laid off and its houses were trashed and boarded up. Spirits and civic pride received a well-needed boost when Liverpool stormed the entertainment world in 1963-64 with its Merseybeat sound. No city has spawned a group as popular as the Beatles, who all remained reasonably true to their Scouse roots.
The Liverpudlians' strong sense of community spirit is legendary, but their society has long been divided by the unequal distribution of wealth, and by the opposing aims of Tory rulers and left-wing radicalism, of capitalist employers and working-class labour organisations. Decades of entrenched unemployment and poverty culminated in the 1981 summer riots in the largely black and hugely under-privileged suburb of Toxteth. The Tory government's response was to try and encourage urban regeneration and tourism. Money was poured into redevelopment schemes such as the Albert Dock, a formerly derelict patch on a par with London's docklands, similarly transformed in the recreational 1980s and '90s.
It is no exaggeration to say that the grand buildings which grace Liverpool's waterfront and inner heart were built with the blood money of slavery. From 1700, when the slave trade was embraced by the city's merchants, Liverpool was transformed from a modest trading village into a major mercantile capital, prospering on the back of the infamous 'triangular trading' of slaves for raw materials. Cotton goods and hardware were transported to West Africa in exchange for slaves, who were in turn carried to the West Indies and Virginia to be exchanged for sugar, rum, tobacco and raw cotton.
The abhorrent trade was abolished in 1807, and people-moving of a different kind became the port city's major industry. Between 1830 and 1930, nine million hopefuls - English, Scottish, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians and Russian Jews - set sail from the Mersey's docks to find a better life in Australia and the USA. Many would-be emigrants decided to travel no further than the Pier Head; this was particularly true of the Irish escaping the potato famine, and the city's Irish character is still apparent today. Liverpool was also the port of entry for migrants from Britain's far-flung colonies, and the resulting Caribbean, Indian and Chinese communities that developed made it one of Britain's first multicultural cities.
Liverpool's urban renaissance is gaining momentum and it is managing to shake off some of its previous shabbiness. The city's Georgian face is beginning to shine and the once boarded-up buildings and warehouses are being transformed into new shops, cafes and fancy apartments. Even Unesco was convinced, declaring the waterfront and docks a World Heritage Site in 2004.
Shiny new buildings aside, a night on the town remains a sure-fire way of discovering what makes Liverpool tick.
The city, famed for its Mersey beat, Scouse wit and rivalry with all things Mancunian continues to receive its fair share of visitors as it races to become the 2008 European Capital of Culture.
