num_pages: 629
description: "A History of Modern Britain" confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade, political leaders thought they knew what they were doing, but find themselves confounded. Every time, the British people turn out to be stroppier and harder to herd than predicted. Throughout, Britain is a country on the edge first of invasion, then of bankruptcy, then on the vulnerable front line of the Cold War and later in the forefront of the great opening up of capital and migration now reshaping the world. This history follows all the political and economic stories, but deals too with comedy, cars, the war against homosexuals, Sixties anarchists, oil-men and punks, Margaret Thatcher's wonderful good luck, political lies and the true heroes of British theatre. It accompanies a major five-part documentary series for BBC television.
language: English
title: A History of Modern Britain
titlecomplete: A History of Modern Britain
characters: Tony Blair, John Prescott, Saddam Hussein, Mick Jagger, Lyndon B. Johnson, David Blunkett, Clement Attlee, Charles de Gaulle, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Anthony Eden, Guy Burgess, Enoch Powell, Ian Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Stalin, Margaret Thatcher, John Lennon, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Edward Heath, Nikita Khrushchev, Aneurin Bevan, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Friedrich Hayek, Spike Milligan, Harold Wilson, Tony Benn
genres: Historical, Reference, Politics, British Literature, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Economics, Unfinished, History, Society
ratings_count: 3098
places: Britain
publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc.