Book description
In
The Making of Modern Britain
, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during
the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from
the grand wreckage of the British Empire.
Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World
War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst
we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and
surprising. As the political forum moved from Edwardian smoking rooms to
an increasingly democratic Westminster, the people of Britain
experimented with extreme ideas as they struggled to answer the question
‘How should we live?’ Socialism? Fascism? Feminism? Meanwhile, fads such
as eugenics, vegetarianism and nudism were gripping the nation, while
the popularity of the music hall soared. It was also a time that
witnessed the birth of the media as we know it today and the beginnings
of the welfare state.
Beyond trenches, flappers and Spitfires, this is a story of strange
cults and economic madness, of revolutionaries and heroic inventors,
sexual experiments and raucous stage heroines. From organic food to
drugs, nightclubs and celebrities to package holidays, crooked bankers
to sleazy politicians, the echoes of today's Britain ring from almost
every page. Andrew Marr was born in Glasgow in 1959. He studied
English at Cambridge University and has since enjoyed a long career in
political journalism, working for the Scotsman
, the Independent
, the Daily Express
and the Observer
. From 2000 to 2005 he was the BBC’s Political Editor. He has presented
a range of programmes for television and radio, and most notably hosts
The Andrew Marr Show
on Sunday mornings on BBC1. Andrew lives in London with his wife,
political journalist Jackie Ashley, and their three children.
