with A. J. P. Taylor
The fabric was cotton. The age-the great industrial explosion of the 19th Century.
Manchester was Cottonopolis - city of mills, machines and muck - the first working model of industrial capitalism. It attracted observers from all over Europe. One of them, Engels, stayed to discover for the first time the ' proletariat '.
From Manchester's grimy beginnings emerged the grandeur of the merchant princes and with them Manchester's famous liberal traditions.
The Royal Manchester Cotton Exchange, symbol of a unique past, is this week to be transformed into a theatre. A suitable occasion for A. j. p. TAYLOR , himself from a Lancashire cotton family, to explore the rise and fall of this great merchant civilisation and from its landmarks to assess the importance of what really was ' Made in Manchester '.
Producer ANDREW SNELL BBC Manchester