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154 of 158 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dazzling social history, 17 Jun 2007
This is an exemplary social history of Britain in the six years after World War 11, dazzling in its scope and impressive in its detail.
It covers the impact of the War and its aftermath on most major aspects of British society: class, health, crime, sport, culture (high and low), work, play, leisure, politics, race, the mass media and much more.
Moreover it does it readably. Kynaston seems to have learnt the lessons of the readability studies published at about the time that he covers, including the most important (and most often forgotten) of all: put flesh and blood on your facts, quotes and anecdotes. He does this by enlivening his narrative from beginning to end with a focus on people. Politics may be a clash of ideas but it is people who generate these ideas. Education is teachers and pupils in classrooms. Buildings and suburbs, cities and towns are the product of architects and planners, government officials and residents.
The readability studies of Flesch, Gunning and others said Be Specific and Kynaston bowls over his readers with a wealth of fascinating details. They said Illustrate with a Wealth of Anecdotes and Kynaston provides a veritable newsreel of little stories, weaving them together so seamlessly that the reader is scarcely aware that he is often making an incisive argument. This is because the argument is presented as narrative rather than the abstract analysis normally associated with academic historians.
The result is that you get the feel of time and place, the taste of food, the appearance of streets and towns and cities, the image and reality of buildings. This is, after all, social history, not political history. Politicians make their appearances and so does politics - but in a social context.
It is difficult to imagine anyone beginning to read this book and failing to finish it. It is eminently readable in both the measurable technical sense and in the general sense that it is approachable and captivating.
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214 of 224 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Readable History, 15 May 2007
One of the best history books I have ever read. Whilst 700+ pages is daunting this is well written and very readable. Kynaston mixes the big events with tales of everyday living with quotes from Mass Observation, the pollsters of the day.
Most histories of the 1940s cover the war years and end with smiling faces celebrating VE day in May 1945. A return to normality would take several years. What followed was bleak austerity that is hard to belive from the comforts of 2007 that we so take for granted.
The author places events together so you can read events as they would have appeared in the newspapers of the day, or heard on the radio (only 20,000 TVs, and all of those within 3 miles of Alexandra Palace!). So Hiroshima, the Labour landslide election and people taking their first holidays - day trips to Blackpool, rather than holidays abroad - all take place within a few weeks in 1945. In the process the book debunks a few theories. Churchill's rebuff was not the lurch to the left dreamt of by some but a practical belief that Labour would deliver better housing and health services. Politicians and were trusted about as much they are today and promises of a brave new world were treated with apathy and disdain, not surprising when rationing was even more stringent than it had been in the war years.
Many of us have relations who lived through this period yet this age seems very distant and completely alien to modern society. There but 4 indian restaurants in the whole of Britain and no package tours, and certainly no ipods, computers, starbucks or playstations. If your grandparents say that those days were tough believe them but if they hark back to the good old days beware rose tinted glasses. The picture painted for the ordinary family is bleak and the figures presented for housing conditions and facilities at the time of the 1951 Census take some believing. The well intentioned clearance of slums and replacement by tower blocks was understandable but there was no consultation. All the surveys of the day showed that families wanted houses with garden andn not flats. Sixty years on we still have the legacy of that policy.
If you have the vaguest interest in the history of this period then this is the book for you. Thoroughly recommended.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Enjoyable Trip Through Late 40s Britain, 16 Dec 2007
This compilation of two books covering the period 1945 - 51 and intended to be the first two parts of a work that will progress to 1979, is very enjoyable and sweeps the reader along at a great pace. The daunting 632 pages thus become quite manageable. Kynaston covers the actions of the major movers and shakers in the government and in sport, architecture, industry and the unions, and the literary world. These action are contrasted with the feelings and attitudes of the people on the receiving end as judged by diarists and the results of the Mass Observation exercise that was still in place. Kynaston handles this wealth of material with great skill and moves through all these areas with great aplomb such that the narrative never becomes boring or a disjointed list of different topics.
Minor criticisms of this otherwise excellent book from someone who lived through the period might include a little too much space given to racial attitudes and a failure to really capture the feeling and appearance of bombed cities. There is also a failure to capture the atmosphere of a hospital of the time which was, of course, completely different to today, or the fear of unwanted pregnancy. There is also a tendency to anticipate new building that only really became significant after 1951. Nevertheless, these are relatively minor quibbles and I commend this book as a great read to all those interested in UK domestic history of the late 1940s, and look forward to further instalments.
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