"The Sunday Times bestseller
THE STORY OF BRITAIN during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Find out how Britain changed in this entrancing, lively portrait of Britain’s Elizabethan Age by bestselling writer and broadcaster Andrew Marr
Britain changed fundamentally during the Queen’s long, distinguished reign. So who made modern Britain the country it is today? How do we sum up the kind of people we are? What did it mean to be the new Elizabethans?
In this wonderfully told history, spanning back to when Queen Elizabeth became queen in 1953, Andrew Marr traces the people who have made Britain the country it is today. From the activists to the artists, the sports heroes to the innovators, these people pushed us forward, changed the conversation, encouraged us to eat better, to sing, think and to protest. They got things done. How will our generation be remembered in a hundred years’ time? And when you look back at Britain’s toughest moments in the past seventy years, what do you learn about its people and its values?
In brilliantly entertaining style and with unexpected insights into some of our sung and unsung heroes, this is our story as Elizabethans – the story of how 1950s Britain evolved into the diverse country we live in today. In short, it is the history of modern Britain.
FEATURING: David Attenborough. Marcus Rashford. Jan Morris. Diana Dors. Bob Geldof. David Olusoga. Elizabeth David. Zaha Hadid. Frank Crichlow. Quentin Crisp. Dusty Springfield. Captain Tom – and many others"
"In The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire.
Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and surprising. As the political forum moved from Edwardian smoking rooms to an increasingly democratic Westminster, the people of Britain experimented with extreme ideas as they struggled to answer the question ‘How should we live?’ Socialism? Fascism? Feminism? Meanwhile, fads such as eugenics, vegetarianism and nudism were gripping the nation, while the popularity of the music hall soared. It was also a time that witnessed the birth of the media as we know it today and the beginnings of the welfare state.
Beyond trenches, flappers and Spitfires, this is a story of strange cults and economic madness, of revolutionaries and heroic inventors, sexual experiments and raucous stage heroines. From organic food to drugs, nightclubs and celebrities to package holidays, crooked bankers to sleazy politicians, the echoes of today's Britain ring from almost every page."
"A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade, political leaders think they know what they are doing, but find themselves confounded. Every time, the British people turn out to be stroppier and harder to herd than predicted.
Throughout, Britain is a country on the edge – first of invasion, then of bankruptcy, then on the vulnerable front line of the Cold War and later in the forefront of the great opening up of capital and migration now reshaping the world. This history follows all the political and economic stories, but deals too with comedy, cars, the war against homosexuals, Sixties anarchists, oil-men and punks, Margaret Thatcher’s wonderful good luck, political lies and the true heroes of British theatre."
"ONE DOOMED PRIME MINISTER.
TWO WOULD-BE SUCCESSORS.
BUT WHO’S PULLING THE STRINGS?
The second novel from Britain’s foremost political commentator is a thrillingly intimate look at the inner workings of Whitehall, and who really controls party politics.
The Labour Party has unexpectedly won a narrow majority in the 2018 general election. But the new government is weak and divided, its unpopular leader embattled in the House of Commons. A group of eminent figures from the party’s past see an opportunity to re-establish their grip over its future by replacing the prime minister with a figurehead they can manipulate to their own ends. But who will they choose?
Two possible candidates emerge from the recent intake of MPs: David Petrie, a self-made Scot with a working-class background and a troubled personal history; and Caroline Phillips, a high-flying Londoner whose complicated private life could be either her greatest handicap, or her greatest asset.
Against a backdrop of intrigue and betrayal at the Palace of Westminster, both must struggle with the sacrifices and compromises they will have to make if they are to seize the greatest political prize of all.
In his second novel, Andrew Marr draws on his unrivalled inside knowledge of British politics to expose the foibles, duplicities and absurdities of those we elect to govern us."
"Two corpses. A country on the edge of a political precipice. A conspiracy so bold it would make Machiavelli wince. Andrew Marr’s debut novel imagines what really might be going on behind the door of 10 Downing Street.
When a young investigative reporter is found dead on the streets of London few people notice. But when another body – minus its head and hands – is washed up on the banks of the Thames, its grisly condition arouses a little more interest.
There appears to be no connection between the two dead men. But, unsuspected by the electorate, there is a shocking and dangerous secret at the very heart of government. While the United Kingdom approaches a crucial and delicately-balanced referendum on Europe, a group of ruthlessly determined individuals will stop at nothing – including murder – to prevent the truth from getting out.
Andrew Marr’s first novel is a gleefully twisted spin through the corridors of power. Making full use of his unrivalled inside knowledge of the British political scene, Marr has threaded his wickedly clever thriller with a distinctive strand of pitch-black humour, to offer an irreverent glimpse behind the parliamentary curtain."
"Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories, from classical Greece and Rome to the rise of Napoleon, but surrounds them with less familiar material, from Peru to the Ukraine, China to the Caribbean. He looks at cultures that have failed and vanished, as well as the origins of today’s superpowers, and finds surprising echoes and parallels across vast distances and epochs.
A History of the World is a book about the great change-makers of history and their times, people such as Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, Galileo and Mao, but it is also a book about us. For ‘the better we understand how rulers lose touch with reality, or why revolutions produce dictators more often than they produce happiness, or why some parts of the world are richer than others, the easier it is to understand our own times.’
Fresh, exciting and vividly readable, this is popular history at its very best."
"How do you decide what is a 'story' and what isn't? What does a newspaper editor actually do all day? How do hacks get their scoops? How do the TV stations choose their news bulletins? How do you persuade people to say those awful, embarrassing things? Who earns what? How do journalists manage to look in the mirror after the way they sometimes behave?
The purpose of this insider's account is to provide an answer to all these questions and more. My Trade, Andrew Marr's brilliant, and brilliantly funny, book is a guide to those of us who read newspapers, or who listen to and watch news bulletins but want to know more. Andrew Marr tells the story of modern journalism through his own experience.
This is an extremely readable and utterly unique modern social history of British journalism, with all its odd glamour, smashed hopes and future possibility."
