Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent overview of a confusing decade, 10 Sep 2009
There are still four months left of the 2000s at the time of writing, but Tim Footman, author of this excellent overview, believes that symbolically speaking, the decade is already over. It was a 'decade' that lasted a little over seven years, sandwiched between the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11 2001 and the collapse of Lehman Bros on September 15 2008.
Those two catastrophic events evoke many of the grand themes of the decade, at least as it was experienced in the West: runaway capitalism, the War on Terror, the foreign and domestic policy of the Bush administration, and the increasingly confusing commingling of the physical and real with the virtual and 'unreal'.
Between those two bookends, it was a short decade characterised mainly, Footman says, by two things: fear and technology. From identity cards to illegal MP3s, from Osama bin Laden's grainy videos to the army of blogs that rose to challenge the established media, technology seemed to spread fear among everyone from industry moguls to the man/woman in the CCTV-surveilled street.
But this isn't a heavyweight history book. Tim Footman's specialism is pop culture, and you're more likely to find him pondering the significance of Lily Allen, or the BBC remake of Survivors, or the Glastonbury festival. And if all those things sound particularly British, that's because the book describes the Noughties primarily as they were experienced in Britain, with relevant nods to the US, China and Thailand (where the author currently lives).
If you've been watching television, reading blogs and following the news for the last ten years, this book may not tell you much you don't already know (although I did learn that the hip-hop producer Danger Mouse's real name is Brian). But for anyone seeking to put the confusing and often distressing events of the past decade into some sort of context, it's an excellent first port of call.
DISCLOSURE: I was surprised and pleased to learn that I apparently had a small hand in the creation of this book, according to the acknowledgments. I should disclose that Tim is a friend of mine, in an appropriately Noughties sense of the word: we've only met once, but we read each other's blogs and have exchanged many thoughts and ideas over the past few years, especially on the blurring of boundaries between the virtual and the real; the subject of the book's Chapter 5.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"A past so recent it blurs into nowness "., 30 Oct 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
It could be argued that with it still being 2009 and all that it is too early to be publishing an overview of the decade we are still living through - the one given the silly sounding moniker the noughties. ( though I ,m jiggered if I could come up with a better phrase) For as the author puts it "This book is about the past albeit( as I write) a past so recent that the edges blur imperceptibly into nowness without us being able to distinguish the difference ".
Ignoring that though and judging the book on it's written merits I thoroughly enjoyed Tim Footman's book .which covers the massively imperative with the more flippant and trivial ( or so it would seem) but treats all subjects with wit, erudition and due consideration. So he flips from the millennium bug to the dome ( a vast polyester tent ") 9/11 to the war on terror ( of which he asks "how can you wage war on an abstract concept ?") environmental concerns, the democratisation brought about by the internet, the credit crunch , surveillance erosion of privacy and civil liberties , shopping and consumerism as placebo , the rise of China as a global super power, reality TV and by dint of that Susan Boyle and Jade Goody .
It is also a useful pointer for books and films relevant to the subjects covered .He even covers his five "Records " that summarize the decade. "Hallelujah "Hallelujah by Alexandra Burke is one which at first seems odd but then makes perfect sense and I'm with him 100% about John Cales version being the best. It may seem ridiculous to discuss 9/11( he raises the point that America needs enemies and after the thawing of the cold war 9/11 gave "The American Superman a few Lex Luthers to take the blame ") in the same book as Jade Goody ("Her special quality was her own her own exceptional mediocrity ") but both figured hugely in the decade , though one could wish fervently neither had.
The book is fairly concise , less than 200 pages , and some might wish for a more in-depth analysis like the book about Britain in the seventiesWhen the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies .But as it is Tom Footman does a good job in defining the decade where styles stood still ( He makes a point about comparing fashions at either end of decades and it's true. The 60,s/70,s 80,s even the 90,s saw immense transformations ..but not the noughties. Is it because we now live a more introverted lifestyle on our computers/ game boys / I -pods etc? ....hmmmm) He is a bit sniffy, snobbish even, about Amazon reviews "The reviews on Amazon are as powerful an argument against democracy as you could find "(He is quoting someone else here actually but it's rather ironic given that this book has been encouraged to receive reviews) His conclusion that the two defining themes of this decade are technology and fear are hard to discount but it is also the fact we have so much information so readily available but are we making the most of it ? It would seem many questions about the noughties remain to be answered and the definitive book on the decade therefore remains to be written ..
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gosh that went quick!, 4 Oct 2009
I've been a fan of Tim Footman's blog, CulturalSnow since soon after its inception, so to get his take on the times we're still grappling with in a format I can hold in my hands is a real pleasure. Its a great book and moves as fast as the technology that got us to where we are now. A real page turner, its well researched, thoughtful, though provoking and funny. Recommend!
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