Description
Book SynopsisAs Wartime' did for the 1940s, this book will grasp the broad spectrum of events in the 1930s in the words of contemporary witnesses drawn from metropolitan and provincial letters and diaries, newspapers, periodicals, books and the range of rich material available in the British Library.J.B. Priestley famously described the ''three Englands'' he saw in the 1930s: Old England, nineteenth-century England and the new, post-war England. Thirties Britain was, indeed, a land of contrasts, at once a nation rendered hopeless by the Depression, unemployment and international tensions, yet also a place of complacent suburban home-owners with a baby Austin in every garage.Now Juliet Gardiner, acclaimed author of the award-winning Wartime, provides a fresh perspective on that restless, uncertain, ambitious decade, bringing the complex experience of thirties Britain alive through newspapers, magazines, memoirs, letters and diaries.Gardiner captures the essence of a people part-mesmerised by ''moder
Trade Review‘The cinematic clarity of Gardiner’s descriptions of accidents and ceremonies tells more about the decade than a page of statistics.…or the depth of its research, the quality of the writing and the sheer richness and vibrancy of the material, this is a quite outstanding work of social history’ Telegraph
‘It is comfortably the definitive account of a decade that has been much maligned’ Daily Telegraph
‘A definitive, vividly detailed book on a complex decade, which is a joy to read’ History Today
