Modernity Britain: 1957-1962

by David Kynaston

Overview

This edition collects both volumes of Modernity Britain for the first time

Following Austerity Britain and Family Britain, the third volume in David Kynaston's landmark social history of post-war Britain

'Triumphant ... A historian of peerless sensitivity and curiosity about the lives of individuals' Financial Times

'This superb history captures the birth pangs of modern Britain ... It is a part of Kynaston's huge achievement that such moments of insight and pleasure should accompany what has become a monumental history of our recent past' The Times
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David Kynaston's history of post-war Britain has so far taken us from the radically reforming Labour governments of the late 1940s in Austerity Britain and through the growing prosperity of Family Britain's more placid 1950s. Now Modernity Britain 1957–62 sees the coming of a new Zeitgeist as Kynaston gets up close to a turbulent era in which the speed of social change accelerated.

The late 1950s to early 1960s was an action-packed, often dramatic time in which the contours of modern Britain began to take shape. These were the 'never had it so good' years, when the Carry On film series got going, and films like Room at the Top and the first soaps like Coronation Street and Z Cars brought the working class to the centre of the national frame; when CND galvanised the progressive middle class; when 'youth' emerged as a cultural force; when the Notting Hill riots made race and immigration an inescapable reality; and when 'meritocracy' became the buzz word of the day. In this period, the traditional norms of morality were perceived as under serious threat (Lady Chatterley's Lover freely on sale after the famous case), and traditional working-class culture was changing (wakes weeks in decline, the end of the maximum wage for footballers).

The greatest change, though, concerned urban redevelopment: city centres were being yanked into the age of the motor car, slum clearance was intensified, and the skyline became studded with brutalist high-rise blocks. Some of this transformation was necessary, but too much would destroy communities and leave a harsh, fateful legacy.

This profoundly important story of the transformation of Britain as it arrived at the brink of a new world is brilliantly told through diaries, letters newspapers and a rich haul of other sources and published in one magnificent paperback volume for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620408100
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/02/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	880
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

David Kynaston 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. He is the author of Austerity Britain, 1945–1951, and Family Britain, 1951–1957, the first two titles in a series of books covering the history of post-war Britain (1945–1979) under the collective title Tales of a New Jerusalem. He is currently a visiting professor at Kingston University. He lives in England.
David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951. He has been a professional historian since 1973 and has written eighteen books, including The City of London (1994-2001), a widely acclaimed four-volume history, and WG's Birthday Party, an account of the Gentleman v. Players match at Lord's in July 1898. He is the author of Austerity Britain 1945-51 and Family Britain 1951-57, the first two titles in a series of books covering the history of post-war Britain (1945-1979) under the collective title 'Tales of a New Jerusalem'. He is currently a visiting professor at Kingston University.

Editorial Reviews

…brilliant and ambitious…Rather than establishing a political narrative, [Kynaston] sets out to recreate the experience of actually being British…in the postwar world. Some of his material comes from the letters and diaries of Establishment figures like Macmillan or Richard Crossman. But more is drawn from crowdsourcing the lives of everyday people, using…thousands of diaries, surveys, observations, "overheards" and questionnaires…The result is a vivid snapshot of how Britain experienced the late 1950s and early '60s that emphasizes, rather than blurs, its complexity and contradictions. In this world the everyday assumes as much importance as affairs of state…even if you don't know what "Corrie" is, or never tuned in to watch rugby league (not union) coverage on Grandstand with "up and under" commentary by Eddie Waring, this will not stop you from enjoying the book. That pleasure is due in part to the sheer zest of Kynaston's style, which manages to be both powerful and fun.

The New York Times Book Review - Richard Aldous

…an all-enveloping and mesmerizing social panorama [that] continues Mr. Kynaston's grand project of chronicling everyday life in Britain from the end of World War II to the beginning of the Thatcher era…No fact is too large, no fact too small for Mr. Kynaston, whose scrutinizing eye delights in particulars drawn from diaries, memoirs, the daily press and a host of other primary sources…The fact stream flows on, page after page, like an unending newsreel. This is half the fun of the book, which proceeds at a lively pace in a brisk, appealing style. Mr. Kynaston, who seems to miss nothing, is like an air traffic controller, picking up incoming planes when they are tiny blips and following their progress intently throughout the book…his total-recall approach…get[s] across the flavor and excitement of the time.

The New York Times - William Grimes

10/27/2014
Kynaston continues his history of postwar Britain (after Austerity Britain: 1945–1951 and Family Britain: 1951–1957) in this rich tapestry of political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments. He profiles a Tory-ruled, post-Suez, largely postcolonial U.K. that was still a highly stratified society, but was attempting to become less so, partly through attempts at educational reforms that would allow more middle- and lower-class children access to better secondary schools. Kynaston shows that while Britain lagged behind the U.S. in purchasing “consumer durables,” it was beginning to catch up. He is particularly interested in urban development, and illustrates major efforts at slum clearance in the industrial cities. Occasionally, Kynaston presents a confusing tableau of unrelated events, such as a housewife’s washing routine, the popularity of a TV show called The Archers, and the debate over where Prince Charles should go to boarding school. He sometimes offers too much detail, as in quoting several reviews of a relatively minor Arnold Wesker play, and many of his Britishisms—“Teddy boys,” an “HMSO,” a “PPB,” and “Podsnappian”—will be lost on American readers. Still, Kynaston has a knack for narrative pacing and manages to hold the reader’s attention in this comprehensive, multifaceted look at a changing period. B&w photo inserts. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Kynaston continues his history of postwar Britain (after Austerity Britain: 1945–1951 and Family Britain: 1951–1957) in this rich tapestry of political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments . . . Kynaston has a knack for narrative pacing and manages to hold the reader's attention in this comprehensive, multifaceted look at a changing period.” —Publishers Weekly

“Volumes full of treasure, serious history with a human face.” —Hilary Mantel, Observer, Summer Reads

“David Kynaston resembles a novelist impersonating a historian. His books read like fiction disguised as documentary . . . His method evokes the sumptuous messiness of human experience. He depicts history as an unfolding, ill-managed pageant . . . His books so enriching, improving and endearing . . . Shrewd, funny and ever-readable . . . In Kynaston's history books, the reader can hear the people speak. He has an elocutionist's sense of people's diction.” —Guardian

“The Britain we know today takes shape in these pages. Monumental and highly readable.” —Kirkus Reviews

“He conveys 1950s life more vividly than any historian before him . . . Masterful.” —The Economist

From the Publisher

2014-10-01
Covering just five years in more than 900 pages, British historian Kynaston (Family Britain, 1951-1957, 2009, etc.) continues his sprawling study of Britain from the end of World War II to the rise of Margaret Thatcher.The present volume opens in 1957, when the grimness of postwar belt-tightening had finally given way to something of a boom. The author wisely and subtly brackets that year and the closing year of his volume with music, Tommy Steele ("Britain's first rock 'n' roll star") on one side and the Beatles on the other. Attractive though this book is for anyone interested in the social history of modern Britain, Kynaston is more concerned with the concrete details of daily life—literally. In much of the narrative, the author documents Britain's efforts both to modernize and to provide adequate housing for a growing population. "[D]uring the 1950s," he writes, "well over two million new dwellings had been added to the national housing stock and almost 300,000 old houses demolished." But that wasn't nearly enough, and tied into the housing shortage were issues of race and class, with one major race riot in Notting Hill linked to the arrival in an all-white public-housing neighborhood of a Pakistani family. Strife is a constant in Kynaston's pages, but so is aspiration, with an exploding population of university students and of the social services to accommodate them, a modest but growing movement to press for gay and minority civil rights, and a general loosening of the primness of yesteryear, as exemplified by the lifting of the ban on D.H. Lawrence's 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover—which didn't happen until 1960. Kynaston peppers his narrative with examples of British unstiff upper lips, complaining about everything from, yes, the ethnicity of one's neighbors to the grating voices of the Windsors. From Prince Charles' boarding school to the rise of Benny Hill: The Britain we know today takes shape in these pages. Monumental and highly readable.

Kirkus Reviews