London follows six different families from the Roman settlement to the dockland development of today. The author places his vignettes at the most dramatic moments of that city's history, leaping from Caesar's invasion to the Norman Conquest to the Great Fire to the Blitz, with many stops in between.

Real-life characters and events of British history are found in London as well, but it is the period details and the stories of ordinary Londoners, whose daily lives are affected by events that have shaped the city over two thousand years, that bring the novel to life.

In London Rutherfurd provides more than just the familiar sights and revelations, he gives a voice to a city whose history is one of the most remarkable in the world.