Innovation, the sixth and final volume in Peter Ackroyd's magnificent History of England series, takes readers from the Boer War to the Millennium Dome almost a hundred years later.
Innovation brings Peter Ackroyd's History of England to a triumphant close. Ackroyd takes readers from the end of the Boer War and the accession of Edward VII to the end of the twentieth century, when his great-granddaughter Elizabeth II had been on the throne for almost five decades.
It was a century of enormous change, encompassing two world wars, four monarchs (Edward VII, George V, George VI and the Queen), the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the Labour Party, women's suffrage, the birth of the NHS, the march of suburbia and the clearance of the slums. It was a period that saw the work of the Bloomsbury Group and T.S. Eliot, of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, from the end of the post-war slump to the technicolor explosion of the 1960s, to free love and punk rock, and from Thatcher to Blair.
A vividly readable, richly peopled tour de force, Innovation is Peter Ackroyd writing at the height of his powers.
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Release date
September 28, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781250135544
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781250135544
- File size: 28614 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Kirkus
August 15, 2021
In the final installment of his History of England series, the veteran historian tackles the erosion of the British Empire and the modernization of the national economy. Like the preceding five titles, Ackroyd's latest is a wide-ranging, elegant work of scholarship covering a century of British history, politics, and culture, from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to 2000. During this time period, the old aristocracy contracted as egalitarianism expanded. The Edwardian era, writes the author, saw a "cultural divide in England between those who wanted to shore up the Victorian establishment and those who hoped to build a more egalitarian country from its ruins." Some of the currents the author follows include the continued decline of the aristocratic class, the growth of the middle class, the mass migrations into cities while grand estates were sold to "new men," travel's transitioning from horse to bicycle and motorcar, and the burgeoning understanding that poverty was largely caused by social ills rather than as a result of immorality. Great leaders from Lloyd George to Winston Churchill grasped this new period of political history, in which the "condition of the people" was at the forefront of reform efforts. Along with a minute delineation of political machinations, Ackroyd chronicles the surge of women moving into public roles as suffragists turned more militant; the insoluble debate over Irish Home Rule; and the nationalist sentiments that precipitated the march to war with Germany. Though numerous other authors have covered the war years better, Ackroyd is at his finest weaving together the cultural fabric of the nation, describing the "hungry thirties," the establishment of the postwar welfare state during an austere time, Britain's uneasy rapport with Europe, and the triumph of British icons such as Twiggy, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, and Harry Potter. Thorough, readable history by a seasoned researcher and author.COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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