Book 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 England and the new, post-war
England. Thirties Britain was, indeed, a land of contrasts, at once a
nation rendered hopeless by the 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.
Reviews for “Wartime”:
“Juliet Gardiner's Wartime, vibrantly captures, through personal
accounts and vast research, what Britain was like under the siege, while
at the same time giving a clear picture of the wider war in which its
servicemen and women fought. She summons up the atmosphere and the
emotions of the time vividly” Daily Mail
“It's all here in Juliet Gardiner's ambitious new study of life in
wartime Britain. A minor monument of scholarship, this book is big in
both size and scope, but biggest of all in terms of sheer exhilarating readability”
The Scotsman Juliet Gardiner is a respected commentator on British
social history from the Victorian times through to the 1950s. She was
editor of 'History Today' magazine and is also author of the critically
acclaimed and bestselling 'Wartime'.
