Product Description

David Kynaston's "Austerity Britain 1945-51", the first book in his series "Tales of a New Jerusalem", was a major "Sunday Times" bestseller in 2007. Here is the first volume from this landmark book covering 1945-48. Beginning his groundbreaking series about post-war Britain, Kynaston presents our nation through the eyes of those who lived there. Meet Judy Haines, a Chingford housewife, struggling daily with food rationing; Henry St. John, a self-serving civil servant in Bristol; and, the young Glenda Jackson, taking her 11-plus. Using mass observation, diaries, letters, newspapers and magazines from the time, "A World to Build" is an unsurpassed social history: intensely evocative to those who were there and eye-opening for their children and grandchildren.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9910 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
'A wonderfully illuminating picture of the way we were' The Times 'The book is a marvel the fullest, deepest and most balanced history of our times' Sunday Telegraph 'Multi-layered, embroidered with great richness of detail Austerity Britain kicks off a series that will end in 1979. What a treat we have in store' Craig Brown's Book of the Week, Mail on Sunday 'There can be no doubt that this book is both a history and a triumphant work of art unputdownable' Observer

About the Author
David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951. He has been a professional historian since 1973 and has written fifteen books, including The City of London (1994-2001), a widely acclaimed four-volume history, and W.G.'s Birthday Party, an account of the Gentleman vs. the Players at Lord's in July 1898. He is currently a visiting professor at Kingston University.

Customer Reviews

Good but...
Pointless if you're going to buy 'Austerity Britain 1945-51' because it's the first half of that book.
Tip: ignore any 'frequently bought with' recommendations.

A disappointment
I had high expectations for this book. The concept sounded great and the publicity had been very favourable. But a couple of chapters in I began to feel disappointed, and then angry and frustrated. Kynaston uses his source material in a shamelessly partisan fashion. Nothing unusual about that for a historian, perhaps, but here the narrative is so one-sided as to subtract almost all credibility from the text. It's fine for him to believe the post-war Labour government actually did the country more harm than good...but for him to imply (on the basis of very limited surveys and testimonies) almost the entire population felt the same way is preposterous. Reading this book you'd think most of the UK were ignorant, backward whingers who hated all politicians. Saying that, he doesn't even attempt to represent the whole of the UK, despite the 'Austerity Britain' title. Northern Ireland isn't mentioned once. Scotland is confined to a few pages about Glasgow. There's a south east/midlands bias which is really unsubtle. Certain passages are useful from a purely empirical point of view. Overall, though, this is a flawed attempt at what could, and should, have been an impressive work. If you want the definitive history of this period, read Peter Hennessy.

Started well, petered out
I really wanted to like this book, and was intrigued by the approach of taking a whole host of material sources to paint the pictures of life in Britain immediately after WWII.

The overall thesis is clear, Britain goes through stages with the author's austerity period being (roughly) VE Day -> Maggie gets elected. I assume the next phases is boom-bust being Maggie through the the currently predicted Cameron victory, but I don't think I'll be looking out for the book.

The reason for my disappointment stems from having been very absorbed in the first few chapters, the birth of the welfare state, central planning, urban regeneration and other majjor topics, then having to put the book down for a few weeks. When I returned to it I (unusually) found that not only could I not spot where I had read to, but then accidentally reread a chapter before spotting a familiar page, thus leading me to realise that the whole style of the book was very comfortable but like one of those documentaries spun over two hour long episodes that could have been compressed into 40 minutes - easy to watch on a wet evening but not actually a great use of time.

Suffice it to say I struggled to get back into this book, and have actually abondaned play (something I almost never do).