| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.70
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in White Heat: 1964-1970 v. 2: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.70, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
Dominic Sandbrook’s White Heat (subtitled A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties) is a mesmerising piece of reportage -- detailed, authoritative and written with the kind of vividness that brings the period to vibrant life, both for those who lived through it, and for those to whom it is as remote as ancient history. And weighing in at nearly a thousand pages, it is as comprehensive as one could wish, dealing with revolutions in the arts (the Beatles, of course, are central -- and iconic -- figures here), as well as the relentless bloodletting in Northern Ireland, and political scandals in Westminster (the John Profumo/Christine Keeler affair being the most significant). The book quotes on it jackets Harold Wilson's much-repeated comment ‘Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution’ -- and Sandbrook, taking his title from this quote, makes the strongest possible case for this being a revolutionary period -- even if several of the revolutions involved (such as the hippie-inspired ‘Summer of Love’) actually came to nothing. The changes in society during this period were seismic: cultural and political (as mentioned above), but also technological. In the sports arena, Britain featured a resounding World Cup triumph in 1966).
In many ways, as the author demonstrates, Britain became a significant player again in this era and featured once again on the world stage in a fashion it had not achieved in the 1950s. But the outward accoutrements of these revolutions in society nurtured some clandestine (and less palatable) undercurrents, and Sandbrook anatomises these with quite as much skill as he devotes to the more celebratory sections of the book. The range of references involved is quite stunning, and the period concentrated on (1964 to 1970) is not likely to receive such a comprehensive airing again. --Barry Forshaw
Review
** 'A substantial contribution to our understanding of the social and political history of modern Britain' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ** 'This second volume lives up to the promise of the first ... Sandbrook is an inveterate demolisher of myths' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ** 'Could hardly be more impressive in its scope. [Sandbrook] writes with authority and an eye for telling detail' THE TIMES ** 'A triumph ... The way in which Sandbrook counterpoints his themes is masterly' DAILY TELEGRAPH
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Dominic Sandbrook must have read pretty much everything written about the swinging sixties in this compelling, compulsive and hugely entertaining revisionist history of the 1960s, though in truth (in line with Larkin) his 1960s begins in 1963/4 and covers pretty much all the social, political, cultural and technological narratives that fuelled these crucial years. The result is a dense but compelling piece of work that manages to convey the political machinations of the increasingly paranoid Wilson years whilst also providing considerable social and cultural contexts such as the rise of The Beatles and an almost exhausting range of less predictable fare. The stories and anecdotes are the lifeblood of the book saving it from becoming just another cut and paste History and Sandbrook has a thesis as well. For him the 1960s were years of continuity more than change and the so called "swinging" aspects of the 1960s that supposedly represent a cultural revolution according to Historians such as Arthur Marwick have been overstated. The influence of iconic 1960s personalities; brandnames and cultural phenomena were both geographically limited and socially blunted by class distinctions and a population that still connected very much with traditional values and was still essentially conservative by nature. Sandbrook is writing in what is fast becoming a crowded market. Andrew Marr has managed the whole century in two volumes whilst Brian Harrison has recently published volumes on the same period as Sandbrook. David Kynaston also weaves a similar patchwork in his micro Histories-Austerity Britain and Family Britain and like Sandbrook intends to cover the period up to Thatcher. It is therefore to Sandbrooks credit that i am eagerly awaiting the next volume of his narrative covering the first four years of the 1970s-State of Emergency out in September. He managed to make Dull Alec (David Frosts description of Sir Alec Douglas Hume) interesting and Wilson(smart alec), equally fascinating. Nice to see a historian giving room to more than the obvious cultural icons.
Overall a triumph and well worth a look- start reading and you will be hooked. White Heat is red hot.
Overall a triumph and well worth a look- start reading and you will be hooked. White Heat is red hot.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When somebody has written a book of such excepptional quality as Never Had it so Good, you always fear for their next one. How, you wonder, could Sandbrook maintain the levels of energy and irony that made that such a delight? And yet he has - perhaps has even exceeded them. Perhaps as bookshelves warp beneath their combined weight there will be carpers who wonder if they couldn't have been squeezed into one volume, but that is to miss the point: what makes Sandbrook's two books on the sixties so important is that very breadth. All life, it seems, is here.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
All I can do is echo what other readers have said. Sandbrook has written a thoroughly absorbing and enlightening book. To condense so much information and to make it clear, concise and interesting is to be praised.
Having read this I have now ordered his previous book covering the post-war years and look forward to being absorbed again.
Here's hoping vol 3 (the 70's) is published soon.
Well done!
Having read this I have now ordered his previous book covering the post-war years and look forward to being absorbed again.
Here's hoping vol 3 (the 70's) is published soon.
Well done!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
An Interesting Book Which Challenges the Conventional Wisdom About the...
White Heat by Dominic Sandbrook is a very good book about the Sixties which reassesses the events, trends and influences of that decade. Read more
Published 1 month ago by HBH
Very readable
His previous book "Never Had It So Good" has the edge on this one.
Very readable but somehow not vivid at all. Read more
Very readable but somehow not vivid at all. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Matthew
White Heat
This book covers all of the 'happenings' in the 60's (64 to 70) Harold Wilsons government to architecture, music, and fashion. I found it surprisely easy to read. Read more
Published 2 months ago by D. S. Golby
A lump in my throat
Named after the speech by Harold Wilson about modern technology, which was ghost-written by his personal aide and not seen by him until the night before it was delivered, this book... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mr. D. P. Jay
Well-written and well worth a read
I thoroughly enjoyed the book's predecessor 'Never Had It So Good' on the period 1956-1963 and 'White Heat' is just as interesting. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mr. P. F. Norris
Enjoyable, but far from Impartial
White Heat is an extremely readable, detailed (if occasionally factually inaccurate) history of England in the first Wilson years of government, that draws on an enormous range of... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Voracious reader
Indispensable
This really is a very fine book. The breadth of knowledge and research required to write about such a broad subject cannot be underestimated. Read more
Published on 13 May 2010 by Christopher Snowdon
Brilliant comprehensive survey
I find it hard work reading long books these days as there are so many more distractions than there used to be. Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2009 by D. Wright
A must for all those interested in the 1960s
Dominic Sandbrook's book on the 1960s is a really enjoyable read. It concentrates purely on Britain, however worldwide events that had affected the country are also referred to. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2009 by A. P. Wall
WHITE HEAT-1964-70 v.2; A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties
A Must have,NEVER to be put down,Book! Featuring a whole host of invaluable information and,quotes,from the people that lived,breathed and,smealt the SIXTIES!
Published on 2 Jun 2009 by Jameson Wisdom
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
