Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9971 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 692 pages

Review
Praise for Kynaston's City of London series 'The four volumes of his City history of the last 200 years are a splendid achievement invaluable.' Howard Davies, The Times 'With this volume, there ends the most interesting and original piece of history writing of our times.' James Buchan, Evening Standard 'Like the earlier volumes, this book is rich in detail and splendidly entertaining Kynaston relates these events with great verve.' Sunday Telegraph

Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph
Austerity Britain is a cracking read. The Attlee years have been
covered before, notably in scholarly political histories by Kenneth Morgan
and Peter Hennessy, but Kynaston's book is both more evocative and more
entertaining than both.

John Carey, Sunday Times
Even readers who can remember the years Kynaston writes about will
find they are continually surprised by the richness and diversity of his
material.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive but strangely uninspiring account
No-one could fault the time and effort that have gone into producing this extensive work but the sheer volume of facts, figures and comments might well prove mind-numbing to the average reader and certainly led to me - who can just remember the period in question - losing interest and scanning through pages looking for the essence amongst innumerable details. A great resource for a student of the times but not for those seeking a general account of these important years.

A Very Enjoyable Trip Through Late 40s Britain
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.

Wonderful instructive and entertaining history
I was aged ten in 1945 and experienced this period of British history and found this brilliant in its accurate depiction of everyday life, account of the political scene and the birth of the welfare state. Read it and understand where a lot of those chickens (good and bad) now roosting on this sceptred isle came from.