num_pages: 944
description: Acclaimed author of 'Wartime' Juliet Gardiner brings to life the long-neglected decade of the twentieth century -- the 1930s. J.B. Priestley famously described the 'three Englands' he saw in the 1930s: Old England nineteenth-century industrial England and the new post-war England. Thirties Britain was a land of contrasts at once a nation rendered hopeless by the global Depression unemployment and international tensions yet also a place of complacent suburban home-owners with a Baby Austin in every garage. Now Juliet Gardiner acclaimed author of the award-winning Wartime provides a fresh perspective on that restless uncertain ambitious decade bringing the complex experience of thirties Britain alive through newspapers magazines memoirs letters and diaries. Gardiner captures the essence of a people part-mesmerised by 'modernism' in architecture art and the proliferation of 'dream palaces' by the cult of fitness and fresh air the obsession with speed the growth and regimentation of leisure the democratisation of the countryside the celebration of elegance glamour and sensation. Yet at the same time this was a nation imbued with a pervasive awareness of loss -- of Britain's influence in the world of accepted political social and cultural signposts and finally of peace itself.
language: English
title: The Thirties: An Intimate History
publisher: Harper Press