Andrew Marr: The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to VE Day

by Marr, Andrew

ISBN: 9780330510998

Published: 2010

Afascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the 20th century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British EmpireBeyond 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. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of World War II, Great Britainwas shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst they 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...