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thedandybrambler's review
challenging
funny
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Comprehensive argument about Britain in the period. It was fun to learn more about social history and I love how sandbrook systematically examined the arguments not only of other historians but of contemporary critics to elaborate on, support or dissuade the arguments presented in the book
witchprincess's review
4.0
It feels dirty giving this a high rating when Sandbrook spends half his time now writing delirious columns for the Daily Mail but this is unarguably a well-written and enormously detailed account of the period. I certainly wouldn't take its line of argument as gospel, but as a work of popular history seeking to chronicle and interrogate the great political events, social changes and cultural phenomena of the 60s, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
mickymac's review against another edition
5.0
Magisterial history, demolishing myths of rapid change with a forensic, witty and insightful assessment of the time of Harold Macmillan. Despite affluence and ample welfare provision, Sandbrook captures a sense of drIft and decay. The cynical anti American posing of uninspired radicals shows that the superior and ineffectual snobbery of the English middle class left is nothing new.
mitvan's review
5.0
The political, social and cultural history from 1958 to 1964. MacMillan, Profumo, The Beatles, Jean Shrimpton. Fascinating stuff.
sifter's review against another edition
3.0
The central idea - that the 60s were not a radical disruption of what came before, but much more of a continuation - is interesting and well argued. It’s also interesting to see political action so well situated with cultural events (and vice versa). But despite an interest in reframing history, this extends more to the narrative than the characters or the attitudes: it still mostly focusses on people you’ve heard about before (in a way the entire book is viewed through the prism of Macmillan) and it doesn’t work hard enough to expand the scope of what’s covered. There are some nods to a more social history based approach but it’s still basically the “great man” theory. It’s not that comfortable with a wider vision of history, and tilts into misogyny when talking about Christine Keeler. For all the author’s dislike of CND and “folkies” as inauthentic middle class tourists, a more authentic panoply of voices is lacking from the book as a whole that claims to be a history of a whole country and a whole age.
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