Seven Hills is photographer Chris Hoare's portrait of his hometown of Bristol—a city that drew international attention in 2020 when the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down during the Black Lives Matter protests. Hoare, who grew up in the city, builds the book around the persistent issues that have defined Bristol's recent years: the inheritance of slavery and racism, the widening economic divide between classes, the visibility of homelessness, and the gentrification that is pushing many residents away from their neighbourhoods towards the outskirts. The work is neither voyeuristic nor sensational; even when documenting hard truths, Hoare insists on the beauty of his city and the people who continue to make their lives in it—the friendships in a council estate stairwell, the colour of a corner shop, the protest banner held aloft. The result is a book that takes its title from Bristol's traditional self-image as a city built on seven hills, and turns it into a frame for asking what kind of place a city becomes when its inheritance and its inequalities are not hidden away.