The Making of Modern Britain [Paperback]

I hadn't read anything by Andrew Marr before, but as 1900-1945 is a period I'm very interested in I thought I'd give this a go. Marr's an engaging TV presenter, but his writing style is even more evocative, and it's almost as if he's telling you the story of the period face to face with the way he manages to bring the period to life so well. You can almost hear him speaking to you as you read.

The social history element was what I enjoyed most - the stories of the music hall entertainers, the first night club owners, the Suffragettes, the birth of the mortgage-obsessed society, the first package holidays - but what's fascinating is the way Marr weaves politics, general history, social history and commentary together so that you don't even realise you're moving from one subject to another. This was a great read, and educational, and I'm definitely going to be buying his next book!

Andrew Marr is the kind of person you wish had been your History teacher at school. Many people view history as a dry subject, boring at best and downright death inducing at worst. But history, as presented by Mr Marr, comes alive and throbs with vitality. This book, following on from his previous one, covers the period from the start of the twentieth century right up until the end of the Second World War. During that time there is a wealth of history waiting to be discovered and many things will amaze you.

Sadly though Andrew Marr has at times been sloppy with his facts. For example Mr Marr rightly claims that Queen Victoria was born in 1819 and became Queen in 1837, but mistakenly states that Queen Victoria was twenty when she became Queen, when in fact she had turned eighteen less than a month previously. When you find errors like this it tends to undermine your confidence in the facts being presented overall throughout the book. Some proof reading would have served Mr Marr well, one feels.

But that said this is a very good book, filled with a wealth of history that is easy to read and even more easy to understand. It is not dry history, but is alive and helps us to understand the path our country took to arrive in our modern times. Along the way you will learn about Edwardians, World War One, the General Strike, Depression and of course the road to further conflict during World War Two.

Personally I love history and read a lot of books on the subject. But this book will appeal to people on a much wider scale and reading through it's pages won't make you feel as though you are back in a boring history lesson. Rather you will feel like a tourist travelling through time soaking up what our grandparents and great grandparents experienced during their lives.

Marr's previous history of post war Britain was hugely accessible, well written, populist and often very quirky. One remembers the flashes of detail such as the impact on the British people of unpopular imported tinned fish "snoek" after the second world war or his dislike of the eighties "big hair" rock bands. As a big post 1945 political history for the general reader it has few equals but can Marr perform the same trick in his new and equally weighty tome "The Making of Modern Britain" subtitled "From Queen Victoria to VE Day"

It is set in a historical period that has been subject to forensic analysis from eminent historians ranging from A J P Taylor, Peter Clarke, Paul Addison and Martin Pugh. Similarly in terms of key events like the First World War there is an embarrassment of riches in terms of the works of Huw Strachen, John Keegan and Niall Ferguson. As such this period is one of the most studied and argued over era's in British history and it begs the question what can Marr add?

Ultimately the value of Marrs approach it to pitch his book again into the field of populist history and encourage accessibility. No doubt students and the general reader will use his book as a source to get into other historical works for which we must pay our thanks to him. His book accompanies a TV series and therefore has to be lively in its analysis, entertaining and self deprecating. As Marr has stated in the series bumf "If you are not trying to make people watch, if you're determined to maintain your dignity, then you're in the wrong business". That said the sections in this book on Music Halls, the Suffragettes, Charlie Chaplin and political figures like Asquith and Lloyd George are excellent and provide real illumination. Similarly he vividly retells the story of the how belief systems on eugenics and vegetarianism were essentially formed in this period to great effect. Marr of course is most at home with the politics of the period and with the all those big pre war ideologies swirling around he is in his element.

There are some niggling little errors in the book Marr says that King Edward V11 is the cousin of the Kaiser when in fact Edward was actually the uncle of the German Emperor. In terms of interpretation his analysis of Ben Tillett is a nice piece of historical revisionism that rescues a key figure in Labour history from obscurity; but is he Britain's answer to Leon Trotsky? To be fair this is only implied but somewhat overcooked. Similarly with the array of BBC researchers at his disposal the lack of footnotes and a proper bibliography is a bit on the lazy side. That said in the run up to Christmas this book will be intelligent and enjoyable stocking filler and goes well beyond just being a script for the TV series. Stretching to 450 pages it provides ample evidence that Marr like the best historians tells a good story very well, he will draw and excite new people into what is clearly the best analytical discipline within the arts and for his hugely enjoyable history he should be widely applauded.