Description

‘Britain in the 1920s and 1930s pops to life in this often very witty chronicle of that jittery time’ The Times

‘Alwyn Turner is the master of funny, engaging social history’ Sunday Times

After the calamity of the Great War, there was a desire in Britain for escapist fun – the lights of the Jazz Age, radio comedies and the pictures were a welcome respite from the grim reality of the Great Depression. Yet the storm clouds were gathering, and Britain between the wars was a turbulent, restless place – and where the foundations of the modern nation were laid.

Combining cultural, social and political history, A Shellshocked Nation is the next instalment in Alwyn Turner’s highly original history of the twentieth century, sketching a portrait of the interwar nation through its entertainments and scandals, its people and political crises. From the General Strike to the BBC, Irish Home Rule and the rise of fascism, this is the definitive story of Britain’s most anxious era.

Publisher Review

Alwyn Turner is the master of funny, engaging social history * Sunday Times * [Turner is] always entertainingly brilliant — Marina Hyde * Guardian * An admirable analysis of this most misunderstood – yet most relevant – period of British history — Simon Jenkins This is just glorious: almost every page stops you dead with insight into a world at once utterly strange, yet still living somewhere within us all — James Hawes, author * The Shortest History of England * A wide-ranging account of a nation coming to terms with the most devastating war in the history of Britain, which includes the major episodes of those years as well as the smaller human details which enlivens the book — Juliet Gardiner, author of The Thirties: An Intimate History A sparkling account of popular culture in Britain between the wars, embracing Gracie Fields and George Formby as well as Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain — Sir Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government, King’s College, London This is both enjoyable and moving. Alwyn Turner has a knack for digging beneath the official historical record and extracting the flavour and texture of real life in the early twentieth century. In A Shellshocked Nation he draws on popular culture to show how a nation shocked, maddened and silenced by grief dealt with the traumatic efforts of one war and the build-up to the next — Lucy Lethbridge, author * Tourists: How the British went Abroad * Praise for Little Englanders: A page-turner of a popular history of the period, crammed with humour and striking quotes — Andrew Marr * New Statesman * There have been plenty of books on the Edwardians before, but never one as richly enjoyable as this — Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat — ‘History Books of the Year’ * The Times * The very best sort of panoramic portrait — David Kynaston