Reflecting on the Edwardian era as a period of profound social change, the historian and author of All In It Together provides an insightful and entertaining portrait of the age of the suffragettes, Irish unrest and the birth of modern Britain.
When Queen Victoria died in 1901 it was the end of an era. Many later remembered the era that followed as the long afternoon of an empire where the sun never set. Yet the Edwardians knew the country was in a state of flux; the seismic change that they felt would transform modern Britain forever.
In Little Englanders, Alwyn Turner reconsiders the Edwardian era as a time of profound social change, bringing their history alive through music halls and male beauty contests, the 1908 Summer Olympics and the real Peaky Blinders. In this colourful, detailed and hugely entertaining social history, Turner shows that, though the golden Victorian age was in the past, the birth of modern Britain was only just beginning.
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781800815315
Number of pages: 400
Weight: 309 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 32 mm
Edition: Main
There have been plenty of books on the Edwardians before, but never one as richly enjoyable as this - Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos. The scope is vast, covering everything from the suffragettes to The Wind in the Willows, and Alwyn Turner proves a wonderfully enthusiastic narrator - 'History Books of the Year', The Times
Amusing and engaging ... [a] portrait of a poignant interlude in British history - Andrew Martin, Observer
A page-turner of a popular history of the period, crammed with humour and striking quotes - Andrew Marr, New Statesman
Little Englanders hums and thrums to the texture and tone of everyday Edwardian life - Daily Mail
Engrossing ... Alwyn Turner is an assured guide to this brief but dramatic era - Daily Telegraph
Well written, often fascinating - Simon Heffer, Spectator
Alwyn Turner has achieved the remarkable feat of shedding new light on the Edwardian era ... his research is impressive and [Little Englanders] is consistently stimulating - Literary Review
A welcome contribution to an oft-overlooked period ... Turner smashes the mythologies of the age ... a remarkable yet accessible read ... what Turner does so well is capture the cultural landscape, treating us to the leisure, the stories, the songs and the movies of the era ... Ultimately, Turner paints a vivid picture of a tempestuous age: an emerging modernity Britain battling for stability and order - BBC History Magazine
The Edwardians have long been the lost decade of British history, yet they are that history at its climax. Alwyn Turner sets the record straight, bringing its characters, strains and stresses brilliantly to life - Simon Jenkins
The very best sort of panoramic portrait, full of vivid characters, emblematic anecdotes and telling social detail, all underpinned by penetrating historical judgement. The Edwardians have fascinated readers for more than a century, yet even those who think they know the period will find much to discover and savour in Alwyn Turner's sometimes unsettling but always life-enhancing pages - David Kynaston, author, A Northern Wind
Britain's most electrifying contemporary social historian conjures the forgotten country of more than a century ago ... to reveal a strikingly foreign world which nonetheless holds up a dusty mirror to our own. A magnificent triumph over cultural amnesia, brimming with insight and impossible to put down. Fiercely recommended - Alan Moore
Every page grips and delights as Alwyn Turner presents a deeply researched yet gorgeously entertaining double vision of something now almost fantastical - a United Kingdom in full Imperial glory - yet unnervingly familiar - James Hawes, author, The Shortest History of England
Alwyn Turner is a wonderful raconteur of historical eras. He has a sense for character, and story, and bizarre anecdote, that makes an epoch come alive and makes you feel, at times, that you're living in Edwardian times, albeit with much better food. This is history written from below, and above, and all milieus in between - Simon Kuper, author, Chums
Alwyn has the happy knack of making history slip down like a pint of Best. The facts and references and context are all there, yet the whole thing flows like an ideal conversation between two or three well informed friends, teasing out the truth from the half remembered myths of the recent past - Simon Evans
There is something fascinating and fleeting about the Edwardian era. It is both an ending and a beginning. Little Englanders captures the period perfectly, in all its confidence and uncertainty - Adrian Tinniswood, author, Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the Post-War Country House
An interesting social history of a time that proved much more significant than simply a transition between the reign of Victoria and what we now refer to as Modernity - Bookmunch
A wonderful and rollicking account of the popular culture of Edwardian Britain, based on a massive amount of reading of the popular literature of the period. It is as entertaining as it is perceptive - Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government, Kings College London, and author, The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain
How the Edwardians shaped 20th century Britain ... a readable new account - Scottish Legal News
Praise for Alwyn Turner - :
Hugely engaging ... Turner's genius lies in finding the odd little stories that get under the nation's skin and reveal what people were really thinking ... He writes with a tremendous sense of fun. - Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
Alwyn Turner is a master of the telling detail ... ravenously inquisitive, darkly comical and coolly undeceived - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
Turner writes with great fluidity, his tone underpinned by a prevailing sense of irony: even the footnotes are enjoyable - TLS
Turner's seductive blend of political analysis, social reportage and cultural immersion puts him wonderfully at ease with his readers - David Kynaston
Little Englanders is a history of the Edwardian age, the start of the 20th century in Britain, and is a hugely interesting and entertaining study of an era we often tend to overlook. There is an emphasis on social... More
Little Englanders is a truly brilliant history of Edwardian Britain, it is full of wonderful detail and insights into the period but is also an absolute riot! It is probably one of the most entertaining history books... More
Little Englanders tells the story of Edwardian England through the lives of the people. A brilliant social history covering topics ranging from the beginnings of cinema to the suffragettes to immigration. It gives an... More
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