Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II

by A. N. Wilson Narrated by Geoffrey Howard

Overview

When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, few could have any inkling of the stupendous changes that were going to take place in Britain and around the world. In this third book of his acclaimed histories, A. N. Wilson paints a panoramic portrait of the development of modern Britain. He begins in the 1950s with the Suez crisis, immigration, the Angry Young Men and Harold Macmillan, and takes us through the vast cultural changes and pop fashions of the 1960s. He continues through the 1970s, with Vietnam and the Cold War looming large and the Labour government that ushered in the Winter of Discontent. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the '80s signaled the end of a political era in Britain, leading up to the current period of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

Editorial Reviews

Stephen Lowman

…a sharp-tongued elegy to what Wilson considers a vanished country…the author's often unconventional and funny takes on even the most familiar of subjects keep the pages turning.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Although “the second Elizabethan era” has been a period in which the majority of the British basked in comfort, security, and luxury, it is also the reign in which Britain effectively stopped being British, contends the opinionated and entertaining Wilson (After the Victorians). The prolific novelist and historian points to immigrants who have not integrated or learned English, the virtual dissolution of the Church of England, the injection of American culture, and membership in the European Union as destructive of the common culture and national identity. According to Wilson, the late Princess Diana “paradoxically reminded people of why monarchy is a more satisfactory system of government than republicanism. It allows a focus on persons, rather than upon institutions.” The Profumo affair strengthened the press, but intelligent people who wanted their sex lives to remain private were frightened away from politics. Delightfully sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, and always controversial and ironic, Wilson takes no prisoners as he calls Queen Elizabeth II badly educated, Churchill an embarrassment in his last days as prime minister, and Tony Blair a Thatcherite who lacked the one thing necessary to be a successful Thatcherite, namely the enjoyment of being hated. 24 pages of b&w illus. (Jan.)

Library Journal

In this history of post-World War II Britain, the conclusion to a trilogy begun with The Victorians and After the Victorians, British author Wilson argues that not only has Britain changed but that it "no longer exists." It's a situation he mourns and blames primarily upon New Labour politicians but sees as a nearly inevitable outcome after the war. Alternating between sociological analysis and summary analysis of the period's prime ministers, Wilson produces a history that even those not familiar with Great Britain will find fascinating, especially if they understand that this history contains consists of many personal reflections and does not aim to be objective. Much of the story has already been covered in Hugo Young's This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair, but Wilson's creative contribution lies in his many allusions to literature, drama, and music as metaphors for Britain's experience. VERDICT Most readers will find some way to disagree with Wilson, who is anti-immigration, anti-Beatles, anti-death penalty, and pro-gay rights. His book will appeal most to those looking for a sweeping history of postwar Great Britain and who concur that, with a few exceptions, Britain has changed for the worse since World War II.—Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary Lib., Oviedo, FL

Kirkus Reviews

A novelist and disgruntled observer of modern Britain concludes his historical trilogy-following The Victorians (2003) and After the Victorians (2005)-with a stylishly grumpy survey of Britain's "decline" in the past half century. From the time of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1952 until today, Britain, asserts Wilson (Winnie and Wolf, 2008, etc.), has "effectively stopped being British." The Empire was dismantled after World War II, the class system equalized, the national Church and railroad system adulterated, the townscapes spoiled, the London skyline disfigured, homegrown industry exported and unchecked immigration run amuck. American money and culture, along with pressure by the European Union, have ruined what social scientist Karl Popper called the shared "tribal magic." Although it was Britain that stood up against the Nazi invaders in WWII, it was America and the Soviet Union that "accomplished the business" of peace, leaving Britain bankrupt and powerless. Wilson moves chronologically through the age, dividing his survey by the political leaders who held sway at the time, including the "decaying" Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, under whom Britain was humiliated in the Suez crisis of 1956; Harold Macmillan, who defined Britain's future especially regarding immigration and the eschewing of railroads in favor of the car; Harold Wilson and his colorful liberals, mired in Rhodesia and Ireland; Margaret Thatcher, whose appeal to voters the author likens to that of fans of the Sex Pistols ("a cry of rage"); Tony Blair, who oversaw the rise of New Labour; and Gordon Brown, who is apparently "cursed with the one quality which makes public life unendurable: bad luck." Wilson thenpursues popular currents in terms of their assault on "the core of Britishness." Though heavy on Britishisms, the book shows the author as a deeply committed watcher of our time, offering even American readers a great deal to ruminate over. By turns sardonic, rueful, engaging and cantankerous.

From the Publisher

Praise for The Victorians:
“A masterpiece of popular history.”–Frank McLynn

Praise for After The Victorians:
“No review can do justice to the richness, liveliness and sheer fun of this book. Wilson has written one of the books of the year.”–Guardian

“A provocative and spectacularly enjoyable history of the first half of the century.”–Sunday Telegraph

Providence Journal-Bulletin

The caustic humor is persuasive, articulate, funny, and provocative. Our Times is written for the Brits, but Americans will appreciate Wilson's passionate voice and his nostalgia for the West's lost exuberance and pride.

The Buffalo News - Michael D. Langan

A. N. Wilson's Our Times is a scholarly, dark, and at times mordantly funny view of Britain's recent history.

The Christian Science Monitor

Like Gibbon, Wilson uses a style of storytelling that's deeply opinionated, assertive, and enlivened by a keen sense of theater. This is history told not with cool textbook neutrality, but in the voice of a wry uncle holding forth from his armchair.

The Wall Street Journal - Martin Rubin

[An] idiosyncratic history of modern Britain . . . In The Victorians and After the Victorians, Mr. Wilson showed an uncanny capacity for getting at the heart of past ages. In Our Times, the trilogy's concluding volume . . .The author once again gives us a multifaceted portrait of an era. Like its predecessors, the book is enlivened by Mr. Wilson's gift for anecdote [and] character analysis . . . His discussion of the time is infused with a directly personal memory of people, places and events. The result is a piquant refraction of an era of enormous change through a prism that is highly individualistic, even at times eccentric, but in the end deeply rooted and fundamentally true . . . The enthusiasms expressed in Our Times are enjoyable to encounter, but it is Mr. Wilson's wicked wit that carries the reader along.

The Washington Post - Stephen Lowman

The author's often unconventional and funny takes on even the most familiar of subjects keep the pages turning.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169895285
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	01/05/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

Queen Elizabeth II succeeded her father George VI on 6 February 1952. This story is not about her, but it covers the years of her reign which, at the time of writing, looks as if it might well rival that of Queen Victoria in longevity. (Victoria reigned for more than sixty-three years.) Already, the reign of Elizabeth II has encompassed so much change and has witnessed so many remarkable achievements that it makes her seem almost like a time traveller, spanning not just six decades, but whole centuries. The Britain of the early 1950s is so utterly different from Britain in 2008, when I lay down my pen, that it is bizarre to think that we have had the same Head of State as we did when rationing was still in force, and when Churchill was still Prime Minister.

But was this Queen’s reign, like that of Victoria, a time of British success, or of failure? Will this, the second Elizabethan era, compare favourably with that of her great-great grandmother’s or not? The Age of Victoria was one in which Britain became the greatest world power. At the beginning of Victoria’s reign, the first waves of industrial and technological revolution had put Britain into a position in which she had no rivals in the fields of invention and industrial productivity. It only needed free trade – which came about as a result of repealing tariffs on imported grain, the so-called Corn Laws – for an amazing bonanza to take place.

Thereafter, for half a century, until Germany was united and began to catch up, there was no country on earth to match Britain’s wealthproducing capacity. At the same time, thanks to a combination of commercial enterprise, and a genuine desire to help the peoples of Asia and Africa, the British Empire came into being.

Nearly all this prowess, in terms of riches and political power, had evaporated by the time our own Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. Britain was not the true victor in the Second World War – it was the Soviet Union and America that emerged as the superpowers in the new global order. Indeed, the war (1939–45) against Hitler ruined Britain financially. At the time of Elizabeth II’s accession, there was a housing crisis – with many people living in slums, and others housed in prefabs which were an enterprising, and surprisingly comfortable, response to the shortage, but which look to the eyes of hindsight like huts in a Toy Town. There were fuel shortages. The nationalisation of coal and steel industries by the post-war Labour government guaranteed that industrial expansion in Britain would fall catastrophically behind her international competitors, and labour relations were deplorable for the first quarter century of the reign – until Margaret Thatcher did the cruel but necessary thing and hammered the trades unions. When one considers the cold, the poverty, the sheer misery of post-war austerity Britain and compares it with the Britain of today, it is hard not to believe that an improvement has been accomplished which, in its way, is as amazing as anything the Victorians brought about. The standard of living of the average British family in 1952, when a twenty-five-year-old Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, would seem harsh today even to Romanians or the poorest of the East Germans. Few families could afford to drink alcohol except on special occasions. Wine was unheard of – except on Christmas Day.

 

Elizabeth David had not yet revolutionised the British palate and most of the food on offer in restaurants and hotels – assuming you were lucky enough to be able to afford it – was unpalatable. Foreign holidays were for the few, and even they were restricted in the amount of money that could be taken abroad, so that it was all but impossible to travel abroad for more than ten days without running out of cash. A quarter of British homes had inadequate sanitary arrangements, outdoor lavatories, and bathrooms shared with neighbours.

Over half the adult population over the age of thirty had no teeth – it was the received wisdom among dentists that it was better for your health to have dentures. The unhappily married stayed unhappy, unless they wished to go through the considerable expense and humiliation of a divorce, in which there always had to be a guilty party, and farcical scenes had to be enacted in hotel rooms with retired prostitutes, witnessed by private detectives, in order to provide the evidence of adultery.

Homosexuals were treated as diseased beings, and until the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report were passed into law – which did not happen fully until 1967 – two men over the age of twenty-one were in breach of the law even if they shared a bed in complete privacy.

The Lord Chamberlain still exercised censorship over the stage, and until the pantomimic Lady Chatterley trial of 1960, the law made no distinction between works of literature which dealt frankly with sexual matters and sordid pornography.

So, when we look back at the reign of Elizabeth II, and recognise the improvements in living standards, and the enormous increase in national prosperity, and in sexual liberty, it would be perverse not to rejoice.

Consider also the change in the position of women. For the first twenty-five years of the Queen’s reign, it was perfectly permissible for employers to pay women markedly less for doing the same jobs as men, and there were many jobs to which only very privileged women could aspire.

Before 1967, the only abortionists a woman was likely to meet were Vera Drakes with knitting needles, and before the advent of the Pill many women felt enslaved by marriage and family life. By the beginning of the twenty-first century there existed a Britain which did not persecute unmarried mothers, did not hang those who may (or may not) have committed a murder, and did not compel the poor to live in slums. Though its overburdened health service was badly run and there were newspaper stories every week of dirty, badly run hospitals, this should not blind us to the extraordinary advances in medical science and the standards of medical care, which enabled many cancer patients to be cured, which can offer life-saving heart surgery which would have been undreamed of in 1953, and which allowed the ageing population to replace hips and knee joints at the taxpayers’ expense.

The second Elizabethan Age was a period in which the majority of the British basked in comfort, security and luxury. And if from time to time security was threatened – by IRA bombs, by the Brixton riots, or by Islamist terror – what was this compared to the wars which previous generations endured, with the British cities, and London especially, being nightly bombarded in the Blitz, and two generations, 1914–18 and 1939–45, seeing hundreds of thousands of civilians and service men and women killed in monstrous acts of war?

And yet, it would be a bold person who stood up and said that the reign of Elizabeth had been Britain’s most glorious period. For the reign of Elizabeth is the one in which Britain effectively stopped being British. The chief reason for this is mass immigration on a scale that has utterly transformed our nation. Governments needed cheap labour, and the first immigrants from the West Indies helped the expanding health service, the improved transport system and burgeoning industry.

Horrified by the older generation’s racialism, the next generation built up a race relations industry in which discrimination on grounds of skin pigmentation became illegal. But meanwhile, for fear of being thought racist, successive governments allowed thousands of immigrants and their in

Videos