Product Description

In 1936, Henry 'Chips' Channon gave a lavish dinner for King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at his house in Belgrave Square. Feasting on blinis, caviare, sole and beef, served by the ruthlessly-drilled precision of Chips' staff, it was a vivid demonstration of just how far the Americans had percolated high society. The British aristocracy, impoverished by death duties, agricultural collapse and higher taxation, as well as morally shattered by the First World War, could only look on. It was as if the world had been turned upside down. As Lady Londonderry observed, it seemed as if London was 'being run by an American syndicate'. What had happened to bring about this change? How had the Americans become so powerful, so rich, so over here? "Them and Us" is a story of social upheaval, of the transformation which took place when British high society - that bastion against the forces of the New - gave in to America. A lively mix of anecdote and social history, Charles Jennings' new book brings to life the most striking characters of the time and the extravagant, high-voltage period in which they lived, giving a real sense of their follies, dramas, tragedies and longings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12238 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Financial Times, Lionel Shriver, September 1 2007
'my copy of Them and Us is flagged with far more wonderful passages than this review can accomodate...Jennings draws on sources such as Evelyn Waugh and Edith Wharton; his prose often rises to the wit of the former and the elegance of the latter'

The Spectator, Brian Masters, September 8 2007
'he writes with gleeful banter, a sure grasp of the style which enlightens a subject...and a sense of historical truth tinged with fun'

The Daily Mail, Anne de Courcy, August 10 2007
'what impresses is the research, with a number of good primary sources and a lengthy, well-used bibliography, used tellingly'

Customer Reviews

Unhappiness beneath the wealth and privilege
I liked this book. It took a very tart look at the English aristocracy and an equally unforgiving view of those american arrivistes ready to sell their daughters into the peerage. The humour is nice and dry.

At the same time there are some tender and shocking insights into women such as Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough who otherwise have very little reality behind their dreamy photographs. Wallis Simpson emerges surprisingly as a real woman, out of her depth. The Prince of Wales is beyond belief.

I became more and more bound up in these improbable people as I read on.
What did all that wealth and privilege amount to?

Over here
In Them and Us Charles Jennings turns his acerbic eye to the English upper classes in the early 20th century, as refracted through the 'invasion' of Americans who came to dominate high society in London between the wars.

In his last book, The Fast Set, Charles Jennings analysed and dissected the ambitions of a few extremely rich men whose sole purpose in life was to go very fast in a straight line, the author's joy at his subjects' unconscious absurdity seeping between the lines like excess engine oil. In Them and Us, Jennings again zeroes in on a cast of richly bizarre - and bizarrely rich - eccentrics whose behaviour inspires mystic wonder. Characters like the scandalizing 8th Duke of Marlborough, the obsessional William Waldorf Astor, the pointedly shameless Emerald Cunard, the utterly sinful Duke of Manchester, the doomed Edward VIII - all jostling for position from 1875 to 1936.

Such a parade of exotics gives Jennings ample room to relax into his style, wherein historical analysis is presented with a deceptively assured wit. Charles Jennings is possibly the best kept secret in British non-fiction: AJP Taylor genetically spliced with Peter Cook. Recommended.