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The Age of Elizabeth II
by A. N. Wilson
When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, many proclaimed the start of a new Elizabethan Age. Few had any inkling, however, of the stupendous changes that would occur over the next fifty years, both in Britain and around the world.
In Our Times, A. N. Wilson takes the reader on an exhilarating journey through postwar Britain. With his acute eye not just for the broad social and cultural sweep but also for the telling detail, he brilliantly distills half a century of unprecedented social and political change. Here are the defining events and characters of the modern age, from the Suez crisis to Vietnam, from the Beatles to Princess Diana. Here are the Angry Young Men, the rise of pop culture and celebrity, industrial unrest and the Winter of Discontent, the Thatcher era and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. This book propels the reader from postwar austerity, to the end of the British Empire and the emergence of America as a superpower, to the multicultural Britain of today.
"Starred Review. Delightfully sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, and always controversial and ironic, Wilson takes no prisoners." - Publishers Weekly
"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." - Library Journal
"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. " - Kirkus Reviews
"[A]a book with all the weaknesses of swift writing and superficial research, but, almost infuriatingly, all the strengths of Wilson's wit and literary insight....There is no need to share his more reactionary prejudices to concede that he has a point, just as there is no need to share his hatred of poor Woy Jenkins to enjoy this infuriating, passionate, hilarious and sometimes plain barmy book." - The Observer (UK)
"The book also contains more fundamental mistakes. For instance, it asserts that Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower were, like Clement Attlee, bent on dismantling the British Empire ... So as history this volume is the least satisfactory of Wilson's three. But as a quirky, waspish elegy on his own times (he was born in 1950) it is consistently provocative." - The Times (UK)
"This is an intermittently brilliant, hastily written, hugely idiosyncratic and, in the end, rather depressing book." - The Independent (UK)
"The Victorians, the book that opened A N Wilson's historical trilogy, showed this clever but contrary author at his best. Our Times presents him at his worst." - The Independent
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